


Roll with the Punches (issue two)

by jetreadsstuff



Category: unnamed bad space show
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roller Derby, F/F, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, trans girl keith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2020-12-09 00:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 46,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20985518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetreadsstuff/pseuds/jetreadsstuff
Summary: Katie, already struggling to juggle her social life and home life, is thrown for a loop when she finds herself wrapped up in the very violent (albeit awesome) contact sport of Roller Derby. Say goodbye to boring Friday nights as she's introduced to a world of bloody noses, pizza parties, and a new passion.Or, merry fuckin unbirthday for anyone else who thought a lesbian roller derby au would be a good idea (spoiler alert, we all think it's a good idea)





	1. Freakin' El

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Roll with the Punches](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11077881) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 

When the bell rang for the end of the lecture, Katie didn't even wait for the professor to dismiss her. She grabbed her book bag and booked it out of there as fast as she could. Normally, Katie would wait, not because she cared about any of that 'the bell doesn't dismiss you, I do' nonsense, but because he waited until the last possible second to assign chapters. So, she always waited, annoying as it was. 

Not today. Today, Katie was on a mission. See, there was a book that Katie needed. It cost a ridiculous amount of money at the bookstore. She was about to go and waste fifty bucks on a book she'd use for maybe a month of her life, when Keith mentioned that there was a copy at the campus library. She needed the book ASAP, but the library closed at three thirty, and her class ended at three. Seems like plenty of time, right? Yeah, that's what Katie's dad said, too. Well, half an hour would be fine. Except, well, the library was across campus. 

As soon as she made it out of the building, she stole a glance at her phone. It was already three thirty five. There was no way she was going to make it. She started running as fast as she could, even though you really weren't supposed to run on campus. Whatever, she was in a hurry, and it's not like there was any shortage of students willing to break that rule, nor was there anybody who really paid enough attention to enforce the rule.

This was her own fault. She had classes all day. She'd never made it to the library before it closed. It was just set in stone. The sun rose, the earth turned, Katie couldn't get to the campus library to save her life. If she lived on campus, she could have gotten there before class. On the other hand, what kind of a librarian closes shop just a half hour after the afternoon classes ended? An evil one. 

She could have gotten to the library this morning if Matt didn't take forever in the bathroom and if Mrs Holt hadn't told her she had to take the bus and why didn't she have a car already? And the bus made a zillion stops and old old ladies getting to their bingo places or whatever the hell every old lady in Greater Austin was doing on the bus this morning could move any faster than the speed of a snail with no particular place to go. She barely even made it to class, 8am and halfway dead by the time she got there. 

But she didn't have a car and old ladies needed to get to their quilting competitions or whatever and she didn't live on campus and had class all the way across from the library. There was no point in scolding herself for not being better prepared and even if she did live on campus, who's to say that she would be able to drag herself out of bed in time to get to the library before class, anyway?

The sidewalks were so crowded on this side of campus that Katie actually considered wading through the water fountain as a way to cut through. No, that would take longer, she decided. She finally broke free of the crowds of students who appeared to have no place to be, at least they were moving like it. She broke free of the crowded mass of bodies and the smell of old lady perfume and cologne that freshmen wore to appear more mature and she thanked her lucky stars that she had never been one of those people. 

Speaking of thanking lucky stars, she thought, reaching into her shirt and tightly gripping the charm of her necklace. She released it so she could put her full focus on running. Sometimes she worried the charm was going to fall off, a precious family heirloom betrayed by the shitty plastic band Katie placed it on. Making sure it was still there was a part of her daily routine at this point. She passed buildings and finally, finally, the library was in her sight.

She took one last glance at the clock in her phone. it was 3:19. it was gonna be a close shave. She still, after all, had to find the book and get to the help desk before they closed, but it looked like she was gonna make it if she tore through the library like the tasmanian devil. She was going to make it. She was going to make it. It was only thirty more yards she had to sprint. She could do that in a couple minutes. Football players did that all the time. I mean, not that she would know. 

She passed the fountain in front of the library, a curious place to put a fountain though it was, and she was convinced there was no way this could possibly go wrong. 

Just then, though, a girl on rollerblades who, evidently, was also in a hurry to get to the library appeared to Katie's left, and she didn't have time to dodge before she was practically steamrolled. 

"Jesus christ," the girl looked at Katie, "I am so sorry."

"Watch where you're going asshole. You're not supposed to rollerblade through campus," Katie met her gaze. She did look guilty. Really guilty. Like she was gonna think back on this ten years from now and cringe for hours on end guilty. 

Katie stood and dusted herself off. The girl brushed her long, pink hair out of her eyes. Katie felt bad for yelling. It was an honest mistake that anyone could make. Well, anyone on rollerblades. She extended a hand as a truce. The girl took it, grateful, and stumbled to her feet. 

"Sorry again. I'm in a rush," she looked at the concrete. 

"Yeah, me too. I've gotta go. Really, no worries. It was nice running into you," Katie didn't even have time to smile as she sprinted into the library. She made a beeline for the computer. She didn't have time to waste stubbornly trying to find the book herself. They had one copy. Probably more, usually. She sighed and made her way over to nonfiction. Sometimes the Dewey Decimal system was stupid to Katie and sometimes it was the backbone of society depending on what day it was and what mood Katie was in. Today she was grateful for it. The selection for books on mechanical engineering was small, but also easier to navigate than a large section. Finally, she spotted the book, there at the end of the shelf, in all its dusty glory. She had never been so excited to see a boring nonfiction book before. 

She checked the clock. 3:27. There wasn't time to do literally anything other than book it to the front desk, so that's what she did, as quietly as she could though the library was a ghost town. She couldn't help slamming the book on the desk, much louder than she anticipated. The librarian, a fellow student by the looks of her, didn't seem to care, though. Either that or she was too tired to even notice. The library opened at seven in the morning. 

"Just this?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am," Katie smiled softly. She couldn't believe she had made it. She reached into her bookbag and. Wait. Wait, no. Sweet jesus please for the love of god no. She sifted through her bag with increasing tension. She was sure she had her library card. She was absolutely sure. She always had it with her. She never needed to check her bag before going to the library because it was always in her bag. 

"Having trouble?" The librarian raised an eyebrow. 

"I swear my library card is in my backpack. I swear," Katie said to nobody in particular.

"We have two minutes until closing, miss," the librarian seemed to be frantic as well.

"I can help you out," a voice asked behind her. She looked behind herself to see the very girl who ran her over, "you can just check it out on my card."

"Thanks," Katie said lamely. The girl stepped in front of her and set seven books of her own on the desk. 

"I don't know, this seems like it's against school policy," the librarian shook her head.

"Come on. It's me. I will get that book back here if I have to hunt this girl down and destroy her," the girl pouted her lip. 

"You owe me one," the librarian grumbled, scanning the books.

"Yeah yeah," she rolled her eyes.

"Have a good one, ladies," the librarian smiled, waving them off.

"Payback for running you over on my skates," the girl handed Katie her book. Katie saw now, up close, that the girl had a variety of piercings on her face. Katie wondered if she could pull off a lip ring. Not that her mom wouldn't implode at the sight of one in her house.

"Thank you. What were you doing on skates anyhow?" Katie asked.

"I'm a lot smoother on skates and, like I said, I was in a rush," she now wore red sneakers. Probably a good move, Katie thought, given that if they weren't allowed on campus, they especially weren't allowed in the library.

"I could tell," Katie forced a laugh as to not sound like she was being mean. It came out more like a couch. 

"Yeah, well, I need a little more practice," she locked eyes with Katie, and Katie, for some stupid reason, could feel her heart pounding.

"How am I gonna get this back to you, by the way?" Katie asked.

"I dunno. I'm pretty slammed all week long," she furrowed her brow, "any chance you want to swing by my practice match and see these skates in action?"

"Practice match?" Katie folded her arms.

"Yeah, I do roller derby. I'm obviously the best at it," she explained.

"That's so cool!" Katie exclaimed.

"You think so? Even after I ran you over earlier?" the girl sat on the ledge of the water fountain. 

"Seriously. I've always thought roller derby was cool," Katie needed to stop saying cool.

"Are you a big roller derby fan?" she asked.

"As much of a fan as you can be for something you know nothing about," Katie answered, "I must have seen whip it like, a thousand times, but I don't remember anything about it."

"Whip it is, in fact, our bible," she laughed, "It's not hard to figure out what's going on, I promise. That is, if you want to stick around to watch at all."

"Yeah, yeah that would be really great," Katie tried not to sound absolutely ecstatic, even though she really was.

"Cool. You know where the rec center is, downtown?"

"Yes," Katie nodded, "I used to take piano lessons there, a long long time ago."

"I guess I'll see you there, then," the girl grinned, "I'm El, by the way."

"Katie."

"I've gotta go now, but, you know, it was nice running into you."

"Too soon!' Katie shouted. El laughed. She stood and shook Katie's hand, an extremely formal gesture all things considered. Katie waited until she disappeared out of her line of sight before she silently celebrated. It wasn't a date or anything, she reminded herself. But El seemed cool and fun, and Katie was excited to see her again. 

Katie checked the clock on her phone and suddenly remembered that she did have a bus to get to, and soon. She sighed, wishing the universe would allow her to catch a break every once in a while as she made a run for it. She needed a car. She needed to live on campus. Really, she needed lots of things, but what she needed right now was to get to the bus on time. 

* * *

Katie didn't miss the bus. An old lady tried to elbow her out of the way, but she managed to duck under and barrel roll onto the bus as fast as humanly possible. It was a miracle. Katie celebrated this feat by busting into her snack mix for the next day. She pulled out her headphones and her earbuds. Now that she was equipped, she had one mission and one mission only for the next two hours: figure out what the hell roller derby was.

It's not hard to figure out, the words echoed in her head. The only sports she knew anything about were lacrosse and softball. The lacrosse was to support Leandro and Hunk, so she barely knew anything about lacrosse, either. Her knowledge was simply for decoration. Keith played softball, but even he didn't know what the hell was going on half the time.

Roller derby was different, though, she hoped. Roller derby looked like fun. Roller derby was about to be Katie's biggest after school activity. 

Katie zoned back in just in time to notice that her phone was literally at two percent battery. It was charged when she left the house! how did this happen? 

Well, now she no longer had the ability to look up roller derby and actually figure out what was going on with it, and she had also lost her entertainment for the bus ride. Nothing to stare at. She was gonna die. She was almost desperate enough to study but instead resolved to stare out the window, zoning out, daydreaming about robots, as any teenage girl would do.

When the time came to get off of the bus, she was grateful that she seemed to be the only one who's stop this was. She made a break for the front of the bus, quickly thanking the bus driver for the ride. She leapt off the bus and ran for the cul-de-sac, checking to make sure she hadn't left anything behind, not that there was really much she could do if there was. 

And it wasn't just because she had important business to take care of, a cute girl at stake, or even that she needed to use the bathroom more than she had in her entire life. No, Katie needed to be home on time for one very specific reason, and that reason was that Keith was probably on his way right now. Katie's parents were still at work, and Matt was out of town this week for some expo in San Fransisco. 

It looked like rain. Katie's house was at last in sight, and who did she see but Keith, pacing casually up the driveway. 

At the speed of light, Katie's competitive instinct came out of hiding and she ran faster than ever before to beat Keith at this race that he did not know he was participating in. She ducked through the bushes and at last reached the porch, with only about ten secods to spare before Keith arrived. She was on the ground hyperventilating.

"Did you fucking run here from the bus?" Keith asked.

"Ridiculous question," Katie said, wheezing. 

"I would have just waited outside. Jesus Christ," Keith said, as if he would had not absolutely done the same thing to her.

"I have so much shit to do," Katie retched, "I have to figure out what the fuck roller derby is."

"Why do you have to figure out what the fuck roller derby is?" Keith folded his arms.

"Cute girl," Katie answered.

"Oh, right," Keith nodded understandingly. This was why they were best friends.

"Do you?" Katie leaned against the door.

"Do I what?" Keith asked.

"Do you know anything about roller derby?"

"Sure, I love roller derby," Keith nodded again. Katie grinned. Keith was about to save her life. 

* * *

The night of the big game arrived. Keith agreed to take Katie on his bike, as long as he could join her for the match. Keith and Katie didn't get all that much quality time outside of studying, so he was pretty stoked. The rec center wasn't all that crowded, but that was to be expected considering they were offseason. Katie impulsively reached in her back to make sure that the book was still in her bag. Still secure, next to her collection of empty chapsticks and sea of crumpled receipts.

"Hey, Katie!" A voice from behind said. Katie froze in her tracks. Even off her skates, El was fast on her feet. She zoomed in front of Katie and Red.

"El!" Katie squeaked.

"Good to see you!" El grinned. 

"Good to see you, too. I'm totally pumped to watch my first roller derby match," Katie was sweating for no discernable reason. 

"Hey, I've seen you around here before!" El turned her attention towards Keith.

"Yeah," Keith smiled, "I'm a big roller derby fan. This is gonna be your team's year, I can tell."

"Thanks!" El shook Keith's hand, "I think we've got a really good shot at making finals this year. We just need some fresh meat to fill out the ranks."

"When are tryouts again?" Keith asked.

"Two weeks from today! They're not open for viewing though, sorry," El tilted her head, "you should totally try out, Katie."

"Me? Really?" Katie asked.

"Why not?" El shrugged.

"I don't know how to skate," Katie's sweating was now absolutely out of control. 

"It's not hard to learn. Maybe," El looked down, "maybe I could teach you."

"Really?" Katie could feel her face start to flush. 

"Yeah! The track is empty most mornings, I could teach you how to skate here. If you're free, I mean," El twirled a lock of her hair nervously. She had been repeating these words in the mirror all day.

"Tomorrow?" Katie suggested.

"Awesome. Tomorrow," El grinned, "cool. cool cool cool."

"Ellie, we have to go!" another girl's voice shouted from around the corner.

"I have to, uh, get going. It was nice meeting you!" she shook Keith's hand, "See you tomorrow!"

"Yep, right, tomorrow," Katie stood there, bewildered as El waved to her.

"She seems cool," Keith said after El had rounded the corner.

"What the hell just happened?" Katie asked.

"It sounds like you have a date," Keith answered.

* * *

"What do people even wear to go on an early morning skate date?" Katie was still freaking out by the middle of the match.

"I assume you'd wear roller skates," Keith took a sip of his drink.

"Oh my god, I don't even have skates!" Katie shrieked.

"Dude, chill, you can borrow mine. We're the same size," Keith put a supportive hand on Katie's shoulder.

"Since when do you skate?" Katie raised an eyebrow. Keith silently sipped his drink.

"This is gonna be a close one, ladies and gents," answered the announcer.

"Keith?"

"I'll tell you later," Keith told her.

"Why are you being all weird and cagey?" Katie asked.

"I'm not," Keith said, "if I was being cagey, I wouldn't tell you at all. I just don't want to get into it now when everything is all loud."

"It's not that loud in here," Katie protested. As if summoned, both teams zoomed right past them, very loudly. Katie huffed. He won this round. 

Well, they were all on the same team, technically, just split into two halves. But El's 'team' won the match, garnering cheers from Katie, Keith, and the team itself. Katie was happy they won, but she had a mission right now. Keith was being vague and weird, and she wanted to find out why fast as possible. This is what caused her to drag Keith out of the rec center, probably a bad idea considering that he was taller and could feasibly topple over onto her. 

"Jesus," Keith wriggled free from her iron grip, "What was that about?"

"Dude, you know you can't tell me you'll talk to me about something later and think I'm not gonna absolutely obsess over it for the next however long," Katie pointed out.

"Fine," Keith sighed, "I guess you're gonna find out sooner or later."

Katie could tell he was nervous. More nervous than she had ever seen him in fact. Not that Keith got nervous that often, anyway.

"Look, if you really don't want to tell me, you don't have to. It's fine. I don't mean to get in your business like that," Katie assured him, even though she was certain this was still about roller skates.

"No, I want you to know," Keith sighed.

"Okay," Katie took his hand.

"The reason why I've been getting so into roller skating stuff is that...." he bit his lip, "I'm trying out for roller derby."

"Keith, it's an all girl's league," Katie furrowed her brow. Keith stayed silent. Oh. OH. 

"Yeah," Keith looked like she was about ready to combust.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pressure that out of you," Katie apologized.

"It's okay. It's good that you know," Keith smiled.

"Does anybody else know?" Katie asked.

"Nope," Keith answered.

"I'm honored," Katie smiled, "how long have you-"

"Eight months," Keith interrupted.

"Wow. Do you have a name picked out? I don't want to refer to you as something you're not comfortable with."

"I do, but," Keith chuckled nervously, "it's kind of lame."

"My chosen name is Katherine, I promise I'm not gonna think your name is lame," Katie met her eyes.

"Red," she said, "it's Red. My name is red."

"Red," Katie repeated, "I like that."

"Thank you," Red pulled Katie into a hug. Red wasn't really a hugger. It was a good hug. They pulled away.

"So."

"So," Red coughed.

"We're just a pair of gals, then," Katie said.

"That we are," Red smiled, "A pair of transbians getting ready to take over roller derby."

"You're gay, too?" Katie gasped.

"Yep," Red put her hands in her pockets.

"A pair of transbians getting ready to take over roller derby," Katie repeated, "I like that."

"Roller derby doesn't stand a chance."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I hate voltron. Voltron sucked away my passion for a variety of things, scared me away from big name fandoms permanently, took up way too much of my free time, and turned me into the cynical weirdo you see before you today. But the truth is, I really did love some of the characters. I loved this fic, once upon a time. So I'm going to finish it. Not because this stupid awful poorly written show deserves it, but because the love i put into this fic was very real, and I want to put more of that love into it. This bitch is gonna be 30 chapters long, projected over a hundred thousand words, because i've never once been able to chill.
> 
> This monster of a fic is dedicated to my gf, who once upon a time infected me with the trans girl keith bug, long before we were friends or even mutuals. I now lay on the floor having a meltdown abt trans girl Keith and Allura's dynamic at least once a week <3


	2. Go Figure (oh shit that's the wrong kind of skating oh fuck)

Red drove Katie to the rec center on her motorcycle. Katie was absolutely terrified, and dug her fingernails into Red’s back, which Red did not appreciate. Beggars can’t be choosers, though, so Katie tried to ignore the rampant flipping of her stomach. It was cool, though, and Katie was getting used to it. She imagined it would be somewhat of a regular arrangement if they both made the team. 

“Jesus, Katie, I thought my cat was bad,” Red told her as soon as the bike was stopped.

“I bet your cat would be worse if you took her on your bike,” Katie pointed out, “sorry. Thanks for the ride.”

“Yeah, no problem. I had nothing else going on today,” Red leaned on her bike to make sure that the stand was secure.

“I’m probably gonna be, like, an hour,” Katie said, “are you gonna be okay to be by yourself? There’s nothing else really around here, so…”

“Eh, I’ll just walk around the rec center. It looks pretty barren,” Red was right, the parking lot was almost completely empty, save for a staff vehicle here and there.

“Cool,” Katie spotted El in front of the building, skating circles around the trash bins in front of the doors. Katie swallowed her gum.

“Well, there she is,” Red appeared to notice her at the same time that Katie did, “you got my skates?”

“I think so,” Katie reached into her backpack and pulled out a black pair with red laces and hot pink wheels, “yeah, they’re in here.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Red asked.

“I’m nervous,” Katie answered, “I’m way nervous.”

“If you’re too nervous, you can, like, fake sickness and then I can teach you how to skate,” Red suggested.

“Red, I love you, but that may be the worst idea of all time,” Katie said.

“That’s not dramatic,” Red scoffed.

“I mean it. First of all, she’s already here, and it’s basic etiquette to blow someone off before they have arrived at the place you agree to meet up. If you cancel before they leave their house, you’re saving them time. But if you cancel after, you’re wasting someone’s time,” Katie pointed out, “second of all, remember that driving lesson you gave me?”

“In my defense, I don’t normally drive cars. You insisted that-”

“Oh god, she sees us,” Katie’s face paled as El waved at them from across the parking lot. Red cheerfully waved back.

“Well, now it’s definitely weird if you keep standing over here,” Red pointed out. 

“How do I look?” Katie fussed with the collar of her shirt.

“Overdressed for a skating lesson,” Red answered.

“Red!”

“Sorry. You look great. I promise,” Red smiled at her. 

“Okay,” Katie sighed, “okay, let’s go.”

She and Red walked over to El at an extremely uneven pace. Katie was walking extra slow because she was fighting being frozen with fear, and it had only occurred to her just now how fast Red walked.

“Hey,” El greeted, trying way too hard to sound cool and accidentally coming off as apathetic. She had been a nervous wreck, too, rehearsing her words as she skated frantically in circles. Red and Katie didn’t notice.

“Hi!” Katie barely contained her excitement.

“How’s it going,” Red joined in, for the first time in her life having the most social skills out of anyone in the group.

“Hi! I didn’t catch your name last night,” El, instead of holding out a hand to shake, held out a fist.

“It’s Red,” she grinned. It felt good to use her name. Her real name. She fist-bumped El.

“Mine’s El,” El said. Katie gave Red a look. Red wasn’t sure if it was a please-don’t-leave-me-alone look or a get-the-hell-out-of-here look, but Red thought it wise to bounce anyway before she got permanently caught up in this tornado of awkwardness. It wasn’t that Red was unsympathetic, it was, in fact, the opposite problem. 

“Well, I’m sorry to leave, like, as soon as I’ve arrived, but I wanted to check out the pool,” not entirely a lie, Red did have her bathing suit on her.

“Oh, you totally should, the pool here is great!” El smiled.

“I’ve heard. Well, I’ve got my phone, Katie can text me when she’s ready to go. Have fun,” Ugh, Red sounded like someone’s mom.

“Thanks, you too!” El waved to Red. 

Now that Red had narrowly missed witnessing a number of unbearable rom-com meet cutes, it was time to find the pool. It wasn’t hard, which was surprising given the enormous size of the building. The first floor alone had a pool, an ice rink and the derby rink.

Red struggled with the heavy door. The overwhelming smell of chlorine knocked the wind out of her. She set her bag down on one of the chairs closest to the steps.

Red always loved swimming. In high school, whenever a school had one, she would break into the pool after hours and swim sometimes for hours. She was never around one school for long enough to join a team or a club, not that she was really a team person in high school anyway. She was barely a team person now, rarely the darling of her softball team. Maybe derby would be different. She hoped, at least. She hoped.

After she changed, she tied up whatever of her hair she could, even though it was usually resistant to be tamed by any sort of hair tie. She dove in, and the water, although not as cold as it felt, made her immediately swim to the surface. 

“Jesus,” she said to no one, or maybe to Jesus, fuck that guy.

After a few minutes of getting used to the temperature, she dove back in. Something about swimming made her feel completely invincible. It was one of her favorite feelings in the world, being underwater. Separate from the world above. Her own personal sanctuary. And sometimes she really did need a sanctuary. 

* * *

“You’re going to have to stand up eventually, Katie,” El said.

“Nope, I live down here now,” Katie protested. El laughed.

“I know it’s scary,” El assured her.

“I can’t imagine you being scared of anything,” Katie looked up at El.

“Yeah, well, I was scared of skating when I first started,” El cleared her throat, “just take it step by step. I’ll help you keep your balance.”

“Okay,” Katie sighed.

“Move your skates to the side, then take a knee and pull yourself up. It’s really super easy,” El told her. Katie moved her skates to the side, and in the middle of taking a knee, she slipped. El leaned to catch her.

“Thanks,” Katie smiled.

“What I’m here for. Now, you’re doing fine, just put a hand on your knee and push yourself up.” El continued, “I’m not gonna let go of you.”

Katie gulped. Despite some intense wobbling, she managed to push herself up. Her legs shook.

“Oh my god I did it!” Katie cheered.

“You are! Okay, now just, uh, keep your legs square with your shoulder,” El instructed, hands on Katie’s shoulders.

“I don’t know what that means!” Katie stood, completely frozen, save for her still shaking knees.

“It’s okay, here,” El held Katie steady, straightening her spine, “see how much more balance you have?”

“I think so,” Katie was still terrified, but she did feel less like the skates were going to slip out from under her. 

“Cool. Trust me, getting on your feet is the biggest pain in the ass of the whole ordeal,” El tilted her head, “okay. First thing is first, I’m gonna teach you what to do when it feels like you’re gonna lose your balance and fall. And please believe me when I say that falling is not as bad as you are imagining it.”

“Right, right right right,” Katie nodded.

“Bend your knees and stick your arms out, okay? Keep your spine straight,” El still hadn’t let go, but one of her arms was out to show Katie what she meant. 

“Well, I’m probably not doing this right, but I do feel less like I’m gonna fall on my face,” Katie giggled. She was giggling a lot. She didn’t know what her problem was.

“Nah, you’ve got it,” El smiled, “is it okay if I let go of you now?”

“Um, I guess so,” Katie’s knees weren’t shaking anymore, but she still felt better with El holding her steady. Maybe that wasn’t all fear, though. El removed her hand and began slowly skating.

“Now, it’s important that you do not try to walk on skates,” El demonstrated what she meant, and narrowly missed losing her balance doing so, “you want to have kind of a marching motion, like this.”

“Hm. I see. I suppose you want me to do that,” Katie was still half squatting in the safety position.

“Right, yeah, and I can’t really support you for that,” El pointed out, “just lift up one foot, then the other, and then you’re skating. And then you can start gliding!”

“Right, right, right,” Katie stood frozen.

“Katie?” 

“Yeah, El?”

“March.”

Katie nodded and picked up the one foot, placing it very gently in front of the other. Then the next foot, then the first foot again. 

“I’m doing it!” Katie shouted gleefully.

“You catch on quick,” El nodded, “now you can start to glide.”

Katie, at El’s command, began picking up pace until she was smoothly gliding. She was beginning to notice this was kind of fun. 

“Holy shit,” Katie said, “holy shit holy shit holy shit.”

“It’s awesome, isn’t it?” El laughed, “now, I want you to glide over to that trash can over there, and use it to swing a u-turn. Steering is pretty easy, you just lean.”

Katie glided towards the trash bin and swung around it. She did laps between the two trash cans, very quickly picking up speed. 

“This is so awesome!” Katie shouted as she zoomed past El.

“Cool, now I can teach you how to stop,” El smiled.

“Nope, not stopping, never ever,” Katie had never moved this fast before outside of a car, and it totally, totally rocked.

“Katie, come on, I get you’re on top of the world, but you can’t just skate forever.”

“Watch me, sucker!” Katie grinned. El laughed and promptly realized she was serious. She was gonna have to catch Katie. 

* * *

Finally, Red decided she was done swimming for the day after what felt like hours. Time was different underwater, she noticed. Red dried herself off and reached for her phone.

Hm. No new messages. She was gonna have to shower first anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal, but according to the clock it had been almost an hour since she had abandoned Katie in her time of need. Red sighed, and made her way over to the showers. 

After her shower, she thought surely that El and Katie were finished now. Nope, still nothing. Red sighed, and stared at the pool. She wasn’t getting back in now, after she had already showered. So, she resolved to collect her things and wander through the first level of the rec center, bizarrely barren for a Saturday morning. She wondered where everyone was.

After she became certain she was the only non employee inside the building, and precious few employees at that, she began hearing pop music quietly playing. Well, it wasn’t quiet wherever it was coming from. It appeared to be absolutely blaring at top volume, but far enough away that Red could only barely hear it.

It wasn’t music coming from the speakers. They didn’t usually have music going outside of the individual rooms. It was definitely coming from this floor though. And, being bored, being Red, she decided to investigate, playing hot and cold with the music’s mysterious origins. 

She first checked the derby rink, being the closest and the largest of the rooms of the first floor. Nope, no music coming from the derby rink. There was always the outdoor tennis court but it was March and it was furthermore like ten in the morning and nobody but those crazy heterosexual sports couples were outdoors playing tennis in sixty degree weather. 

There was only one explanation. The ice rink. Red slowly made her way over and as the pop music became louder and louder she discovered that it had to be coming from there. Red cautiously opened the door and was suddenly smacked in the face with the blaring music full force, a song she had never heard of by someone who she was sure she at one point had. It wasn’t that she thought it was bad, it was just excruciatingly peppy for this early in the day. 

But before Red could turn back the other way and never return, a girl caught her eye. Taking center stage of the rink, the girl danced along with the peppy tune. Red was far enough away that she couldn’t make out specific features, except for the pink hair pulled into a ponytail. She moved so gracefully and beautifully that Red couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her movements.

_ Speak to me, You're walking closer and it's hard to breathe I should be running, but the heart's naive And I expected too much _

Red found that she herself was having trouble breathing as the girl spun around, moving in a blur. Red moved closer.

_ You were good to me, I left a scar that no one else can see. And now you're back here and reminding me, That I lost way too much _

Red had never watched ice dancing, and now she couldn’t imagine why. It was so pretty.

_ And you know that night I almost said I loved you And you almost said it back _

The girl jumped. It looked dangerous. But fun. Red wondered if she could ever do this. 

_ Are we gonna be more than a memory? No matter how lame my apology I let go of you, you let go of me, Are we gonna be more than a memory? _

It suddenly and violently occurred to Red that this was a private moment she was watching. She very quickly turned on her heel, and despite usually being fast on her feet, tripped on the shoelaces of her doc martens, crashing into the seats. 

“Are you okay?” she heard someone shout behind her. Shit, Red thought. 

“I’m fine,” Red wheezed. A seat had gotten her right in the gut. She turned around, and the girl was at the glass with a concerned look on her face. Red felt her face flush. 

This girl was pretty. Like, so pretty. Probably the prettiest girl Red had seen in her life. She was tall. Taller than Lance. Taller than Shiro. Her eyes were the prettiest shade of brown Red had ever seen. Her pink hair was tied up into a messy top knot. Staring. Red had been staring. She had to say something.

“I’m sorry, but this rink is reserved for myself on Saturday and Sunday mornings,” she looked embarrassed, and a little mad now. 

“Right. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” Red scrambled backwards.

“Don’t lose sleep over it, it was an honest mistake, I’m sure,” the girl’s face softened.

“Right. Yeah, honest mistake,” Red rubbed the back of her neck, “I’ve gotta go. Sorry, again.”

What the hell was wrong with her? Red wasn’t really easy to make nervous or trip up. But now, she was finding herself running out of the building like a madman. Katie and El were sitting on the curb, laughing.

“Hey, Red, I texted you,” Katie stood. She had already changed back into her regular shoes. Perfect.

“Sorry, yeah,” Red sighed, “you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Katie answered.

“Cool, I just remembered I have an assignment due Monday that I haven’t started yet,” El chimed in, “this was fun though. Good luck at tryouts, you two!”

“Thanks! And thanks for teaching me,” Katie grinned. The three of them said their goodbyes and wished each other luck and whatnot. As Red and Katie climbed on the motorcycle, Katie couldn’t help but wonder what the hell had gotten into Red. They didn’t have time for rehashings of Red’s crisis. They had to get ready for tryouts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :P sorry for excessive use of song lyrics


	3. Blades of Glory

The day for tryouts came about far too quickly and too slowly at the same time. Katie had gone out and bought new skates for herself, though she wasn’t sure if they were broken in all the way. 

“How’s it going?” Red asked.

“I’m gonna barf,” Katie answered.

“Please don’t,” a voice said from behind. Katie turned on her heel. 

“Leandro! Hunk!” Katie grinned, reaching out for a hug, “What are you doing here?

“Well, Hunk was starting to get worried-” Leandro started.

“We both were,” Hunk corrected, “because we haven’t talked to you in a few days and we haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“We went to your house and your brother said you would be here,” Leandro continued, “we just wanted to make sure you were, like, alright.”

“We didn’t make you mad or anything, did we?” Hunk asked.

“No, sorry,” Katie sighed, “I guess I’ve been kind of a bad friend since I started, you know, this.”

She looked down at her skates, white with red laces, fabric already starting to tear because she had bought them at the thrift store. Never worn, but still a little old.

“Don’t worry about it. You know how we get during lacrosse,” Leandro put an arm around Katie’s shoulder. 

“Yeah, well,” Katie looked up at him, “you’re here now. That’s good. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Tryouts are open to the general public?” Hunk asked, looking around the parking lot.

“Well, I mean, not really?” Katie shrugged, “You’re allowed I guess, but you have to be quiet and stay out of the way.”

“Since when do you drive a motorcycle,” Hunk poked at the mechanisms of Red’s motorcycle. Katie was suddenly highly concerned and unaware of whether or not Red was out to them. Speaking of, did Red hightail it away while Leandro and Hunk were approaching?

“Um, I-” Katie didn’t really know what to say. Everything seemed like the wrong thing, “I. uh. You know, it’s funny. The.”

“Are you okay?” Leandro asked.

“Katie, the line was getting a little long so I signed us up while I could,” Red locked eyes with Leandro, “hey.”

“Hey gorgeous!” Leandro grinned, “I haven't seen you in a minute. You look great.”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy,” Red pulled her thick black hair into pigtails, “I’m busy right now, if we’re being honest.”

“Do you mind if we come in and watch? We don’t want to make you guys nervous,” Leandro looked past her.

“Fine by me if it’s fine by Katie,” Red answered, “we’ve gotta go, though. They’re going by last name and they’re all the way through D’s.”

“See you guys in there,” Katie waved as Red began skating off. Catching up with her was no easy task. Red seemed to be trying to outrun something.

“Can you believe they just showed up here?” :Red huffed, “I was gonna call them after tryouts.”

“Did they not know that you were…” Katie trailed off.

“No, they know. I told them,” Red stopped skating, “couple weeks ago. After lacrosse.”

“Ah,” Katie nodded. They knew even before Katie did, “I thought you and Leandro didn’t like each other.”

“I don’t dislike him, I don’t even hardly know him. I mean, we hang out sometimes because you two hang out, and now because I told them that I was a girl so they wouldn’t call me by my deadname they’re showing up to derby practice and calling me gorgeous and it’s just-”

“Red, breathe,” Katie skated in front of Red, “I think it’s nice. I mean, he calls everyone by pet names like that. It’s, like, a Leandro thing. And he couldn’t exactly keep calling you tough guy.”

“Can we talk about this later?” Red sighed, “I’m getting all flustered and I just need to be by myself for a minute.”

“Well, you came to the wrong place for that,” Katie was starting to get mad, “why don’t you tell me what’s wrong so you don’t go in there all mad?”

“Actually, getting mad works in my favor for derby,” Red pointed out.

“Red.”

“Please drop it,” Red warned.

“You’ve almost gotten kicked off the softball team three times because of your attitude problems-”

“Roller derby was my thing! It was like, the one thing in the world that was just mine and not Leandro’s or Hunk’s or Shiro’s.”

“Or mine?”

“I’m leaving. We’ll talk later.”

Katie sighed as Red skated away. It was gonna be a long day. 

* * *

“Ahoy!” The ginger coach called Katie over, “are you on the list?”

“Katie Holt,” Katie skated up to him.

“Ah. Fashionably late, I like that. You’re on next, so get ready,” he winked and walked towards the microphone.

“Like next as in now?” Katie asked. Her stomach was in knots.

“Ladies and, well, lady associates, please give a warm welcome to our next guest, Katie Holt!” the coach shouted.

The team clapped, and two voices from the back of the room cheered. Katie smiled at her friends. She didn’t see Red anywhere. Katie shook her thoughts to the back of her mind, thoughts like ‘if this was gonna bother her, why didn’t she tell me before i went and signed up’ and ‘am I a bad friend’.

“You missed introductions so, hi, I’m Nyma, but you may know me as my sapphic she-devils name, Goldirocks,” she fist bumped Katie.

“I’m Katie. Sapphic she-devils name pending,” she smiled.

“Ok. you’re gonna skate around the rink six times, to get a feel on your speed. Then you and I are gonna do some drills. You’re gonna fall. A lot. El taught you how to fall, right?” Nyma fiddled with her lip ring.

“She taught me how to fall,” Katie answered, “how did you know-”

“Oh, she’s been campaigning for you for weeks. She never shuts up about how much you rule,” Nyma answered, winking at El, who turned red and held up her middle finger.

“Are you ready?” Coach asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be I guess.” Katie headed for the track and parked herself at the finish line. She took one more look around the room to see if she spotted Red and then-

“Charge!” Coach started his stop watch and suddenly Katie was flying around the rink, her worries the farthest thing from her mind. 

She heard a muffled “30” as she passed the finish for the first time. She could do better. She could do better. She pushed herself to the absolute limit, which she had discovered was her favorite thing anyway. She felt like she was flying.

“27!” someone shouted. Katie passed the track again.

“26!” someone else chimed in. 

“24!”

“22!”

“And time!” Coach stopped his watch, “twenty seconds on that last lap! Absolutely incredible Miss Holt!”

“Not bad at all,” Nyma smiled.

The team murmured amongst themselves.

“Well, you’ve got speed. Now we’ve gotta make sure you can take a few hits here and there,” Nyma cracked her knuckles, “that would be where I come in.”

Katie gulped. She was not looking forward to it.

* * *

Red found herself chilling out by the lockers for the remainder of tryouts. She was being a jerk. She was definitely being a jerk. But Katie shouldn’t have pushed her. 

It wasn’t until the door to the locker room opened that Red’s agonizing stopped.

“Hello,” the girl greeted. She narrowed her eyes at Red, “hey, it’s you.”

“What?” Red jumped up.

“You were the girl who saw me skating the other day,” they locked eyes. She was possibly the prettiest girl that Red had ever laid eyes on, and she was even more radiant up close.

“Yeah, again, sorry about that,” Red said sheepishly.

“Well, I saw you out there skating. We can call it even,” she smiled, pulling a water bottle from her locker.

“Okay,” Red smiled.

“You were terrific by the way,” she continued, “you really have your aggression down.”

“Yeah, well,” Red laughed, “years of practice.”

“Have you played other contact sports?” Red couldn’t quite place her accent. Australian?

“Well, I mean, field hockey. I wasn’t on a team though,” Red didn’t say that she was also on a softball team, dangerously close to being cut from it due to being too aggressive. 

“So, why derby?” she handed Red a water bottle.

“Thanks. I dunno, I’ve just always really liked roller derby. It’s entertaining,” Red lied. It was a long story.

“Ah,” the girl worried her lip, “listen. It’s cool that you walked in on me, but like. The other girls don’t know that I skate so if you wouldn’t mind keeping that to yourself…”

“Yeah. Sure thing,” Red rubbed the back of her neck.

“Thanks. It’s just kind of...private,” she explained.

“I get it,” Red nodded.

“I’m Allura, by the way,” she smiled.

“Red.”

“Well, I dunno if you heard hiding back here, but you made the team,” Allura looked down, “we’re all getting ice cream to celebrate, if you want to come, I mean.”

“Cool,” Red smiled. Nice. She managed to not make an ass of herself this time. Not in front of Allura at least.

* * *

Nyma, Plax, Zap, Shay, Flo, El. Allura. Red spent the whole walk over to the ice cream place memorizing the names of the girls. Nyma was blonde with the nose ring and the attitude. Zap was shorter than the rest, her brown hair bleached at the bottom and her arms coated with temporary tattoos. Shay was Nyma’s girlfriend, and they were joined at the hip. Shay wore her head shaved with hoop earrings, her long white button up rolled at the sleeves to reveal several tattoos. 

Plax’s frizzy blue hair was pulled into a massive ponytail, her loud mouth and determination being her most prominent qualities. She had a girlfriend, Flo, who’s short hair was slicked back and dyed red, lipstick to match. And Allura, well, she wore a lot of black with pink accents, her skirt red, just a shade darker than Red’s staple leather jacket. 

They were all so cool, but they each had their own distinctive vibe to them. It was hard to believe a group of girls so cool could even exist in one place without the universe exploding. Well. She was one of them now. 

Red wasn’t used to being this close to this many girls. She hung out mostly with boys. She couldn’t really help it, of course. Hunk and Leandro, while she didn’’t know them all that well, seemed sweet. Shiro was her best friend. But Shiro was a lot older. And Katie, well. She simply longed for connection with more girls her age. It was in this longing that she found herself, two long years ago. 

First it was the hair. Of course, she didn’t mean to grow it out the way that it did. She couldn’t afford that many regular haircuts. But she came to like the way it was, though the shaggy mess was at an awkward length that couldn’t be put up in a ponytail even if she straightened it. She was no stranger to hair clips and bobby pins, and her friends suspected nothing, thinking she was just going against the grain. 

Then there was the nail polish. Clear at first, then red, finally black. The bracelets. One at a time gradually increased to about a dozen multicolored thin bands. Combat boots, bought in the women’s section instead of the men’s. Each change was like a tiny puzzle piece falling into place, until finally, standing in the mirror black smeared on her eyelids, hair in pigtails, dressed in her favorite new clothes, the picture came together. 

She felt like she was home there, sitting next to these girls that she’d only just met, these girls that were treating her like family already. For the first time, she felt truly herself.

Still, there was something specific that she couldn’t place about Allura. She wore a pink blouse, black leggings and flats. Her pink curly hair was pulled back into a high ponytail. Red found herself unable to look away. She didn’t know why. Allura caught her looking and smiled warmly. Red smiled back. When it came time to pay, Plax begged an employee to take a picture of the entire team. She grinned and stood before her team. 

"We're going to conquer this season!" She said, "I can feel it. This is gonna be our year."

"You say that every year, Plax," Flo rolled her eyes and smiled.

"I can feel it," Plax repeated sternly. Flo snorted. 

"I think Plax has a great attitude," Shay encouraged, "I bet it will be our year if we practice hard enough."

"That right there, that is the attitude we should all have. Morning afternoon or night, we practice hard to win the fight!" Coach Coran chanted, "Come on, guys!"

"Oh my god, please do not make the new girls do that, they have suffered enough," Nyma pleaded.

"Chanting makes everything better," Coran insisted, "we work hard every night each week-"

"Our Coach is a fucking geek," Flo finished. It barely phased him. 

"Okay no but seriously. I want your a-game. We're not gonna come in second again." Plax instructed. 

“Did I die and make you team captain?” Nyma raised an eyebrow.

"Must we talk about this now?" Allura groaned, "ice cream time is an untouchable gift that we shouldn't squander."

"Yeah, Plax, you're making my sprinkles taste like our past failures," Flo teased.

"Okay okay," Plax held up her hands in defeat, "fine.”

"If it makes you feel better, you're the first person we're gonna come to if we need a pep talk," Shay smiled.

"When. When you need a pep talk," Coran narrowed his eyes. 

"So, um, if I may ask, how long is this season anyway?" Katie asked.

"Well, you attended a pre season warmup game last week," Coran explained, "the actual season doesn't start until mid april. Which gives us plenty of time to practice."

"The season closer is mid november. So it's about twenty eight weeks," Allura continued.

"We really have that many local derby teams to go up against?" Katie asked.

"Not exactly. A bunch of them are spread out across the state. So, every other weekend, we have an away match. We're gonna be here this weekend. Lots of hotels in fancy towns," El said.

"It's sort of like an elimination process, at least here. We've never had a perfect season. Last year we got up to week 26. Almost made it to the final jam." Plax glared, not so much at the other players as off in the distance.

"Plax has been in the game for the longest," Allura explained, "although I joined not long afterwards. Nobody wants to win as much as Plax does. Nobody."

"That's like, half our problem!" Plax sighed, "None of you want that shitty plastic roller skate trophy as much as I do. Not even Nyma! My passion is carrying the team over here."

"Come on, it's not like we don't care. We just suck," Nyma pointed out. 

"That's all gonna change this year," Plaxum grinned, "Katie is so light on her feet, she may as well be flying. And Red runs a good defense. She's got the contact in contact sport down."

"Cheers to that," El raised her root beer float. 

* * *

Katie and Red had to talk about it sometime, and that sometime came right after everybody else said their goodbyes.

“Hey,” Katie looked at the ground.

Red stayed silent for a long time. Red entirely forgot what she had been planning to say. 

“Listen, I’m sorry,” Red looked away, “I’m really glad you’re gonna be on the team with me. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

“You were trying not to. You were gonna walk away and cool off and I was all in your face. I’m sorry,” Katie locked eyes with Red.

“I still should have. I don’t want you to think I don’t want you here because I lost my cool,” Red folded her arms, “because, you know. I do want you here.”

“Then why did you lose your cool?” Katie blurted, “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“I just,” Red sighed, “I dunno. I just freaked because this place is like. Where I first started to feel like me. This is my favorite place, like ever. It feels like I’m gonna wreck it if I’m not careful.”

“I get it, I think,” Katie furrowed her brow.

“It was just a lot at once. That doesn’t mean I’m against any of you being here, but especially you, Katie,” Red scratched her arm, “you’re like, well, you’re the first friend I made at school. And you’re great. And this is something we have in common now, which is even cooler.”

“Don’t get goopy on me now,” Katie sighed, “we are NOT good at this sort of thing.”

“No, we’re not. I feel like I should punch you in the arm.”

“Please do,” Katie held out her arm. Just as these two idiots were about to get horribly injured on account of still being on skates, El skated up to them.

“Hey guys!” She greeted, clearly just completely stoked.

“Hey!” Red grinned, “I’m gonna go load up my stuff. But it was nice seeing you again, El.”

Katie was going to kill her with her bare hands for leaving her alone with her crush. Red waved to El as she skated away,, and was all the way to the bike before Katie could protest. Good thing, too, seeing as how Katie was just about ready to fight right there in the parking lot. 

“So, hey,” El said again.

"Hey, El," Katie greeted, leaning against the wall in a way that she hoped looked cool. It did not. El thought something was wrong with her leg. 

"I hope that Plax and Coran didn't scare you off. They’re a little, uh," El scratched the back of her neck. 

"Intense?" Katie suggested.

"Yes. Intense," El nodded, "you learn to love them. They’re just, well, just passionate."

"Nothing wrong with that," Katie shrugged, "I hardly noticed."

"Riiiight," El rolled her eyes. The two of them just smiled at each other, looking like they each had something to say, “so, uh, Red is always in a hurry to get somewhere else, isn’t she?”

“Don’t take it personally. She just doesn’t like new people. She’ll warm up,” Katie explained.

"I like Red," El said, "she seems cool."

"I like your friends, too. The whole Derby, uh, gang," Katie attempted a smile, but she was sure it came out as more of a grimace. 

"So, listen," El paused. 

"Listening," Katie complied.

"Do you like movies?" El asked.

"Oh yeah. I'm a big fan. Of the movies, that is," Katie nodded.

"Would you like to maybe, like, see one with me?" El coughed.

"Like, just us?" Katie was more squeaking than actually talking.

"Yeaaaah. Like, you know," El paused for a really long time, "a date?"

"A date?" Katie shrieked.

"Yeah. Sorry if I like. Misread anything, totally cool with being friends also," she backtracked.

"No, I totally, totally absolutely do want to go on a date with you," Katie smiled, "like. One hundred percent. Like. Whenever you want. I do not have plans. And if I do, they are cancelled."

"Okay," El laughed, "sometime next week?"

"Sure!" Katie tried not to completely explode. Just then, a car pulled up to them.

"Well, that's me. Talk to you at practice I guess? We can work something out," El said, backing up towards the car.

"Yes. Yeah! Talk to you at practice!" Katie waved. El smiled as she got into the car. Katie waited until she pulled away before she began utterly flipping her shit.

"Do you have to pee or something?" Red asked, "You're moving like you just drank four gallons of soda."

"First of all, if I drank four gallons of soda, I would be dead," Katie pointed out.

"I dunno, I've seen the way that Leandro drinks his coffee, and he can put away, I swear, like a pot of coffee in like two minutes," Red argued.

"Red. Red. Focus," Katie instructed.

"Alright. What happened?" Red blinked. 

"El just asked me out!" Katie grinned.

"Wow!" Red smiled, "You've been on this team, like, five minutes? That's gotta be some kind of record."

"I know! Like, even Leandro and Hunk knew each other for like a decade before Leandro made a move," Katie said, "crush speedrun."

By the time that they actually got ready to go, they had already decided Katie was sleeping over. It wasn't a school night, and they were going to hang out with Hunk and Leandro all day the next day, So Mr and Mrs Holt were cool with it. Red opted to order a pizza the minute the two of them got on the bike. She made it a little challenge to get home before the pizza guy arrived. 

Katie and Red watched bad movies on the couch and ate enough pizza to render them temporarily immobile. It had been a really good day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the fight in there. I'm trying to work with the way that I think Red and Katie would realistically react to the situation. It doesn't even feel like I'm in charge of what happens. Sometimes you're just an idiot for no reason. True friends can recognize when you're being an idiot and call you on it.  
Also a date? a derby match? hanging out with Leandro and Hunk? Shaping up to be a pretty interesting chapter four ;^)


	4. No Name No Game

"Are you going to get her flowers?" Hunk asked, "I got Leandro flowers on our first date."

"Do you have something really nice to wear? I always dress up for Hunk," Leandro asked before Katie could answer the first question. 

"Where are you going for your first date?" Hunk appeared to be getting ready to take notes.

"More importantly, when is it?" Leandro leaned so far towards her that he was practically lying on the table.

"Why would when be more important than where?" Hunk furrowed his brow. 

"Babe. Prep time. It's important," Leandro assured him, "we need at least a week."

"Guys, let her breathe," Red interjected, "she's barely had more time to process this than you."

"You win this round," Leandro squinted.

"I promise I will tell you guys all about it, but it is eight o'clock in the fucking morning," Katie pointed out.

"How you two willingly get out of bed this early every fucking morning, by choice even, is beyond me," Red cringed at the very thought. 

"Making us get up this early to work, no less, should be a crime punishable by death," Katie agreed.

"We're buying you breakfast for your labor," Hunk pointed out, "anything you want on the menu."

"God, what is it that you want us to set up, again?" Red rubbed her temples.

"I thought it would be fun to volunteer us to help set up the wharf talent and performance art showcase!" Hunk said excitedly.

"And you thought we would want to be a part of this because, what, misery loves company?" Red teased. Hunk flicked a berry at her.

"It will be fun, guys. We'll be done by noon, and me and Leandro get a guaranteed spot on the roster for the show," Hunk encouraged.

"When is this thing, anyway?" Red asked, "I hope it doesn't fall on an away match weekend."

"Yeah, we have lives now," Katie smiled.

"Weekend after next," Leandro answered.

"Cool. We'll be there," Katie promised.

"We only have forty minutes to eat," Hunk warned, "we are losing daylight here."

"This had better be some fucking spectacular breakfast to take this big of a chunk out of my Sunday," Red grumbled.

"You'd be asleep till noon anyway," Hunk pointed out, "so we're really not taking a chunk out of your weekend at all."

"I will kill you," Red narrowed her eyes.

* * *

When they were done setting up for the day, Red pretty much immediately took a nap. That girl could nap anywhere, curled up like a cat in the back of Lance's car. 

"Not it to wake her up and drag her out of the car," Leandro announced.

"It's your car, mouse," Hunk pointed out.

"Yeah, well, you're the strongest, pretty boy," Lance gushed

"Alright, alright," Hunk rolled his eyes, "you don't have to turn on the charm. I'll carry her in."

The three of them dumped Red's body at the apartment and went their separate ways for the day. Leandro dropped Katie at home and gave her about fifty more relationship advice tidbits that were probably not as smart as he thought they were in the process. Katie rolled her eyes at each one. Of course, Leandro couldn't see her rolling her eyes from the front seat. However, Leandro could sense it. 

This did not mean he stopped, oh no, this meant that he got ten times louder and more obnoxious with every comment. Every once in a while, Hunk would chime in. 

They were trying to help. Katie knew that, she swore. They meant well. The idea, though of her gay guy friends giving her completely unsolicited advice for talking to a girl she liked kind of gave her a weird feeling at the pit of her stomach. She wouldn't mind if she was receiving advice from a girl friend. Well, if she had any girl friends other than Red, who herself hadn't been on a date with a girl. Still, she knew that Hunk and Leandro were simply being Hunk and Leandro. You know, looking out for her best interest. She still wished in some way that she had asked for said advice, even though she knew it would come one way or the next. It wasn't as though they were some sort of well of wisdom however. Katie had access to a wealth of knowledge that proved that wasn't true. 

"You guys want to see a movie or something tomorrow night?" Katie asked as they pulled up to her house. 

"We're rehearsing for our thing," Leandro answered, "we're rehearsing for our thing every night this week."

"Wow. All night every night?" Katie raised an eyebrow, "you guys must really want to win."

"Oh, there's no prize," Leandro explained, "we're just really dedicated."

"Dedicated enough not to hang out all week long?" Katie folded her arms. 

"You and Red have practice Mondays and Wednesdays, and a match on Fridays, in our defense," Hunk pointed out. 

"Yeah. Hang out with Red," Leandro suggested.

"She has her thing on Thursday nights," Katie retorted.

"Tuesday?" Leandro asked.

"I guess, yeah," Katie sighed, "I could in theory hang out with her on Tuesday. Catch a movie or something."

"So, when you think of it like that, You're only gonna be by yourself Thursday night," Leandro said.

"Okay," Katie had been defeated, "well, see you guys later, I guess."

* * *

Katie zoomed around the track, trying, and failing, to beat her previous record. She was faster than anybody else on the team, and really, that was all she had going for her. She couldn't picture any other reason that she was picked. That was all she really needed, so said El. Katie was approached that very Wednesday night by Plax and Coran while she was re-lacing her skates. Plax slouched as she approached her, corners of her mouth turned upwards, but barely. 

"Katie! Do you have a moment?" Coran asked, cheerful as ever.

"Of course. What's up, Coach?" Katie tugged at her laces, craning her neck to look at him. She had to do that standing up, and sitting down her head had to be almost completely tilted back. Coran seemed to notice that this was an uncomfortable position, as he sat down next to her.

"You're a really marvelous skater," Coran grinned, "you're incredibly fast."

"Wow. Thanks," Katie smiled sheepishly.

"You're okay," Plax grumbled. 

"Plax, is there something you would like to say?" Coran nudged her.

"Coran, please don't make me say it," Plax groaned. 

"Plax and I have been talking. You're extremely fast and you move very smoothly past other players," Coran continued, "very valuable in the game of Derby. Particularly in Jammers, not quite as much with blockers. We think you'd be suited to be a jammer."

"I thought that Plax was the jammer," Katie scratched at her arm.

"Yeah, and a pretty damn good one, I think," Plax sulked.

"I don't want to be a jammer if it's gonna upset Plax," Katie said.

"Plax, we talked about this before we came over here. You're fast, but you're also reckless. You get into fights. You'd be much better on defense," Coran pointed out. 

"I don't want to be a blocker," Plax protested, "I like scoring points."

"I couldn't help but overhear you guys," Nyma chimed in, skating over.

"You couldn't help but eavesdrop, you mean," Plax grumbled.

"I think that Plaxum should be the Pivot," Nyma continued, acting as if Plax hadn't even spoken.

"What? You don't like being pivot anymore?" Coran was surprised at her.

"Plax has been here the longest out of all of us. She's fast, and she's good at defense. Plus, she is a natural born leader. She's already the heart of the team," Nyma smiled at Plax.

"You must be out of your mind if you think I'm going to take your place," Plax crossed her arms.

"Come on, Nyma insisted, "I'd be happier just being a blocker, anyway."

"Well," Plax sighed, "fine. Only because someone is finally recognizing that I'm the heart of the team." 

"Great!" Coran grinned, "Now, about that other thing..."

"Alright, alright," Plax unclipped her helmet and handed it over, still not making any eye contact, "be good to her. I want to win this season. I expect you to practice morning day and night."

"I don't even know what to say," Katie said, taking the helmet.

"Not so fast," El skidded to a stop before them.

"How many people are going to randomly interject themselves into this conversation?" Katie asked.

"You'd better get used to it," Plax rolled her eyes.

"You can't be a jammer without a name!" El pointed out.

"Oh, right," Katie agreed, "I forgot about that."

"You've got time. Four days," El nodded wisely, "it only took Big Blue, like, a day to think of hers."

"You're not gonna help?" Katie asked, but the rest of them were already getting up to skate away.

"We believe in you," El told her.

And then there was Katie. 

* * *

"What about, uh," Red paused, "roller Kate."

"Roller Kate?" Katie cringed.

"What? It's a pun on roller skates!" Red defended.

"I hate the name Kate. You know that. If people start calling me Kate instead of Katie, I'd have to, like, light myself on fire," Katie answered.

"It's almost exactly the same as your name!" Red shouted.

"Inside voices, guys," Red's roommate poked her head out from around the corner, "I'm studying."

"Sorry Wendy," Red whispered. Wendy rolled her eyes and went back to studying. 

"My handle has to be, like, the most important part of my roller derby career," Katie continued, "like Princess Pain. That is such a cool name. It doesn't have to be a pun, either, so says El. It just has to be good. Really good."

"Don't want to end up with something like Little Red?" Red asked.

"Would you stop with that?" Katie glared, "Your name is fine."

"Yeah, well, coming up with names is clearly not my strong suit," Red narrowed her eyes.

"Red is a great name," Katie argued.

"It's not even a name."

"And anyway, why did you invite me over for this if you weren't gonna participate?"

"Because you're my friend, and I wanted to hang out with you!"

"Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry," Katie erased another plausible name.

"How are your parents?" Red shifted the subject.

"Good. Mom's still totally freaked about how hurt I might get. Dad thinks the exercise is good for me. Matt's just upset he has to drive me."

"I don’t mind driving you," Red offered, “it saves time anyway.”

"Oh, and I'm eating, like, twice the food," Katie continued.

"Yeah. I guess skating takes a lot of energy."

"Anyway, how's Wendy?"

:"Straight A's," Red didn't even look up.

"No, Red, how is Wendy. You know what I mean."

"Fine," Red sighed, "she's doing better, I think. Still not great, but better. Still, you know, Wendy."

"And you?" Katie asked.

"Katie, I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine. If my mom wants to do anything about it, she knows what city I live in. If she cares, she can come see for herself what I'm doing. There's too many depressing days in my life. The day she left, the day dad died, birthdays, holidays. If I let myself be appropriately sad, I will never stop being sad."

"Alright. You know where to find me if you want to talk."

"I know," Red sat back up, "and you can talk to me about whatever it is you need to talk about."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Katie avoided eye contact.

"Alright," Red shrugged, "so, derby names."

"I don't even know what it is, by the way," Katie furrowed her brow.

"What?"

"My parents are hiding something from me and Matt. It would be fine, you know, if they weren't so obvious about it. If I was being so over the top suspicious about something I didn't want to talk about with them, they'd ground me immediately. No question about it. Go to your room, they would say, punishing me for this crime I didn't even know I was committing."

"You're right. You should punish them."

"What do you expect me to do, ground them?" 

"Hide your dad's glasses."

"Hide his glasses?" Katie repeated.

"Nope. Kidding. Uh, I guess you could, like, put whipped cream in your dad's shaving cream? Sugar water instead of hairspray? Make them sticky to pay for their crimes," Red suggested. Katie laughed.

"Man, I dunno. You and Wendy just know how to talk to each other."

"Wendy's also only a few years older than me, though," Red pointed out, “and I didn’t even know she existed until last year. It’s easier without a lifetime of complicated issues.”

"Yeah, I guess so. But Leandro is super close with his mom, and Hunk with his. I guess, like, it wouldn't bother me so much if all my friends weren't so close with their parents."

"I'm obviously not close with my mom."

"I didn't mean you."

"And, like, when dad was alive, I wasn't really close to him. He was so caught up with his own stuff, you know?" 

"That's the opposite of what I have. They micromanage, must know everything about my life, but forbid I know anything about theirs."

"And yet, you're still not close."

"Fucked, so it is."

"Absolutely fucked."

"Red, can I ask you something?"

"Katie, please don't ask me about my mom."

"I wasn't going to ask about your mom."

"If not that, what?" Red raised an eyebrow.

"What do you think about the name Katie the destroyer?"

"Perfect," Red laughed.

:"Seriously, how am I going to pick a name before Friday?" Katie sighed.

"I don't think we can think about this on an empty stomach. Like you said, we need twice the food."

"Twice the brain fuel."

"Right. Wendy!" 

"WHAT?" Wendy hollered from the other room.

"WE NEED FOOD!" Red shouted.

"THERE'S FOOD IN THE FRIDGE! LEAVE ME ALONE!" Wendy commanded.

"I AM NOT MAKING KATIE EAT POPTARTS FOR DINNER!"

"ORDER A PIZZA THEN!" Wendy screamed, “I’LL PITCH!”

"THANK YOU!" Red picked up her phone, and turned to face Katie, "Extra cheese?" 

"Extra cheese pizza is the only kind of pizza." Katie said sternly.

Red ordered as Katie scribbled even more names into the notebook, and somehow seemed to be erasing more names than she was writing. Though they had to be sitting there absolutely starved for hours, the wait for the pizza to get there nearly sent them over the edge. By the time it got there, Katie had thought of about zero feasible names. Pizza was good, though, and provided them with motivation. 

"Alright. So, if we're not gonna come up with a pun, then we need to sum up my personality in some way. Ideally, you do both," Katie mumbled, mostly to herself.

"What did they keep saying about you? About how fast you were?" Red asked.

"Ugh. I don't remember. I've had too much pizza to fucking think," Pidge groaned, "there has to be a happy medium for consuming pizza. I have never found it. As soon as I'm within reach of one, I lose control over my body."

"Do we have to think of one tonight? It's been hours," Red glared.

"I guess we could try again tomorrow, after practice, I mean," Katie reasoned, "I don't even know what time it is."

"Think it's like nine forty five."

"Nine forty five?" Katie echoed, "Not enough time to make it home before curfew." 

"About a reasonable amount of time to ask if you can spend the night."

"It's a school night," Katie pointed out.

"You’re an adult, Katie."

"My parents called us joined at the hip."

"Of course we're joined at the hip. We’re on the roller derby team together."

"Good point."

"HEY, WENDY!" Red shouted.

"WHAT?" Wendy briefly paused, "HANG ON. WHAT THE FUCK TIME IS IT?"

"CAN I SPEND THE NIGHT, WENDY?" Katie decided the shouting had looked fun.

"SURE! KEEP YOUR VOICES DOWN. I HAVE A DEADLINE!" Wendy answered.

"We have a lot of our conversations like this," Red explained, "sometimes, if I'm lucky, she'll come out here and study so that I don't have to shout everything."

"Shouting is fun. We're not allowed to shout in the house."

"Grass is always greener," Katie shrugged.

"Should I go for another slice?" Red stared miserably at the pizza.

"You've already had two. You might upset your stomach, and we have practice tomorrow," Katie pointed out. 

"I'm going in," Red announced.

"Why did you ask?" Katie threw her arms up.

"Sometimes I'm not asking for your opinion. I'm asking for your approval," Red answered.

"Well, you do not have it. Just please don't take down that entire pizza."

"Okay. Next time, we're ordering two," Red closed her eyes. 

"That's how you end up like me. Too much pizza to think."

* * *

At practice, Katie mostly kept to herself, as did Red. She was too shy to engage in any sort of friendly trash talk, like the others were doing. Turns out, Katie was a pretty good jammer. She could fly across the rink without a scratch on her, which was ideal. 

After practice, the girls all went to get food, but Katie wasn't particularly hungry, and she was honestly a little sore. She opted to go back over to Red’s.

"Sorry that I was so adamant about you two leaving me alone last night," Wendy said when they got there. 

"It's no trouble. College and all," Katie waved her concerns off.

"Well, I feel bad. You guys can have the TV as loud as you want all week," Wendy offered.

"Don't you have something due on Monday?" Red pointed out.

"Alright," Wendy agreed, "Saturday and Sunday after ten keep it down."

"Deal,:" Katie said. 

The two didn't really have time to hang out that night. Practice ran late, and Katie and Red pretty much immediately put a movie on and fell asleep. The only reason Katie wanted to stay over was that her parents were still busy wigging her out, and she didn’t want to get worked up over it all over again. 

She didn't think she could fit any more social interaction in her brain for the rest of the day if she wanted to. and speaking of fitting things in her brain, she was one day closer to her first match and still no nickname. She was starting to think she needed extra brains. She had all Thursday and Friday to come up with it. The time kept slipping away from her conquest to find a nickname. El had warned that if she did not pick one, she was going to end up with a really unfortunate nickname at the hands of the other players. 

* * *

Katie decided to tag along to Leandro and Hunk's rehearsal at the pier. They got to use the stage, since they set up most of it. Katie supposed that explained most of the motivation behind doing it in the first place. Katie was fine with just observing, that is, until Leandro interrupted her thoughts. 

"LEEOOLEOILELOLEOUUUUUUUUUUUUUMAMAMAMAMAMAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE," Leandro said.

"What the FUCK are you doing?" Katie jumped up from her seat.

"Vocal warmups," Leandro explained calmly.

"Oh. I thought you were fucking posessed," Katie squinted at Leandro, "how long do you suppose that you are going to be doing that?"

"Like, twenty minutes," Leandro answered.

"I'm gonna go find something else to do in the meantime. I never want to fucking hear that noise again," Katie grabbed her backpack off the chair next to her. 

"Stay close," Leandro instructed. Katie passed a snowcone stand as she fled the scene. It was just getting warm enough outside to get a snow cone. She didn't, however. No, the ice cream provided by the team ironically was making her want frozen dessert less. There were always more opportunities to get ice cream, she thought. She sized up the carnival games, deciding that the shitty over sized stuffed animal she wanted just a little too badly to pass up. Finally, she spotted him. A stuffed platypus. Bright red with a pink beak and she arbitrarily decided then and there that she needed to have him in her home.

The game was a ring toss. Katie wasn't the best at ring toss, but she knew a technique. One that Leandro had taught her, way back when. Hold it very specifically. Flick your wrist at exactly this angle. It was stupid, but it worked, and before she knew it, Katie had that red platypus in her arms. 

:"Looks like I'm not the only one that needs a name," she said, to the platypus, that was stuffed, and had eyeballs with glitter in them. Katie glared. This nickname thing was probably the dumbest thing she had ever gotten mad about. She had gotten mad about some pretty dumb things. Katie wandered some more and eventually got hungry. She bought onion rings that were so greasy she felt like she was swallowing a couple tablespoons of melted butter. 

That's when she saw her. Standing there, looking out over the side at the ocean.

"Hey," Katie greeted.

"Oh, hi, Katie,:" Allura smiled, "lovely night, isn't it?" she asked. Her eyes were red, which Katie was for sure gonna pretend not to notice, considering she didn't know Allura well and probably as such did not have enough evidence one way or the next that she was open to talking about.

"Really is," Katie nodded.

"There's something, though, that is making quite the racket around here," Allura continued.

"Oh, that's probably my friend Leandro. He's probably the loudest thing on this pier," Katie explained.

"What is he doing over there? It sounds like he's murdering someone!" Allura observed correctly.

"Vocal exercises. He'll be done soon enough," Katie glared in the general direction of the stage. 

"Soon enough is not soon enough," Allura groaned, "I do not think he's doing a very proper job at vocal exercises, either."

"You're telling me. I told him that I thought he was possessed."

"Well, is he possessed?" Allura asked. 

"Hard to tell. He denied it, but, really, if I was possessed, I would deny it to throw people off my trail,” Katie glanced suspiciously in the direction of the noises. 

"Alright," Allura laughed, "I'm not sure anymore whether or not you're being facetious." 

"I am always being facetious," Katie explained, "I'm very sassy."

"Sassy is a very valuable thing to be on our team. It is very good for jesting with the opposing team before matches," Allura smiled.

"So, what brings you down to the pier?" Katie asked.

"Oh, I was hoping that there was still room on the roster for the performance art showcase," Allura tugged at her bracelet as she spoke. 

"I think that I heard my friend Leandro say that they still had room for a few more, but the roster is filling up fast," Katie squinted, "so, what do you want to do in the talent showcase?"

"Oh," Allura sighed, "I don't, really. I'm not going to enter."

"You came all the way down to the pier to see the roster and that's it?" Katie asked.

"Well," Allura took a long pause, "I don't know. It's not as dramatic as that. I always think about it. There's a lot to do at the pier anyway. I'm here for the corn dogs as much as the talent showcase."

"What would you do? If you did sign up, I mean."

"I used to dance, when I was a kid," Allura quickly changed the subject before further interrogation, "so, what are you doing at the pier yourself?"

"Corn dogs," Katie smirked, "yeah, I don't know. I don't really like being home alone. So, I'm here watching my friends Leandro and Hunk rehearse."

"You're not doing a very thorough job of it," Allura smiled again.

"I wandered off just so I didn't have to hear the warmups. I think they're over by now," Katie looked back towards the stage in the distance, "you're welcome to join me. I mean, if you want to get a closer look at the stage. Hunk and Leandro are really good singers."

"Well, I suppose I'm free for that," Allura nodded, "thank you."

The two of them walked over to the stage, where, thankfully, the warmups had been replaced with actual singing.

"You say either, I say eyether," Leandro sang.

"You say neither, I say nyther," Hunk joined in.

"Either eyether, neither nyther, let's call the whole thing off," they sang in almost perfect unison. Almost. their voices were different, but a good match for each other. When they were done singing, Katie clapped dramatically. Hunk and Leandro climbed off the stage to greet them. 

"How are we?" Leandro asked, "I mean, we'll be dancing, of course. And wearing better outfits."

"You guys were wonderful," Allura said.

"I mean, we're no Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, but we're pretty good," Leandro grinned, "I'm Leandro."

"I'm Allura. Pleasure to meet you," Allura stood up.

"I'm Hunk," he smiled and waved nervously. 

"Allura is on my derby team," Katie explained.

"Cool!" Leandro said, "do you like it?"

"It's the best," Allura answered, "I love roller derby."

"Leandro, what kind of ridiculous question is that to ask someone on a roller derby team. Of course she likes roller derby," Katie rolled her eyes.

"Hey, man, my dad made me do softball," Leandro pointed out. 

"Fine, fine," Katie folded her arms.

"Still having trouble coming up with a derby name?" Allura asked.

"Yes," Katie groaned, "we have a match tomorrow. I'm the jammer, and I do not have a good nickname. I'm doomed."

"You need help coming up with a derby name?" Leandro chimed in, "why didn't you ask us for help?"

"I was gonna," Katie assured him, "after rehearsal."

"Is that what the notebook is for?" Hunk sat down next to Katie.

"Yeah. I wrote some down but, well, take a look," she handed Hunk the notebook.

"Kate on skates?" Hunk scrunched up his nose, "Katie, these are awful."

"I know!" Katie shouted.

"Did you ask Red for help?" Leandro squinted at the notebook.

"Yeah. She wasn't very useful. Told me she wasn't very good at coming up with names to begin with. Which is, you know, ridiculous. Red is a good name," Katie didn't take her eyes off the notebook. 

"Katie-tastrophe?" Leandro scoffed.

"I actually like that one," Allura said.

"I don't know, man, this is a lot harder than it looks," Katie rubbed her temples.

"What about something that has to do with your skating style?" Allura asked.

"What skating style?" Katie furrowed her brow, "I don't have a skating style yet. I don't have any sort of style yet."

"You're very fast. Something to do with speed, maybe?" Allura suggested.

"Cheetah!" Leandro shouted.

"Cheetah?" Katie repeated.

"Yeah, but with a K instead of a C, so like Katie," Leandro explained.

"Yeah, absolutely not," Katie rolled her eyes. 

"What about Lady bird?" Hunk suggested.

"Lady bird?" Katie raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, you did pick up a lot of speed. You almost took flight. It fits well enough," Allura pointed out.

"Hmm. Maybe. I don't know," Katie shook her head.

"Skid Vicious?" Leandro sat down.

"I am not naming myself after that musician guy. What the fuck band was he in anyway?" Katie sighed, "I do like skid, though, I'm adding that to my list of words."

"Skid mark?" Leandro suggested.

"Are you fuckin serious right now? Skid mark? Skid mark?" Katie questioned in disbelief. 

"Alright. You didn't like lady bird, but you really did fly out there. What about something with pixie in the name?" Allura rubbed her chin. 

"Huh. Pixie. Pixie. Pixie," Katie grinned, "I like it. I like it a lot, actually. Pixie o' pain."

"Now that is a great derby name," Allura encouraged.

"Wait, isn't that too similar to your name?" Katie asked.

"Good point. Alright, how about Pixie Pandamonium? Or Pixie Panic?" Allura gestured dramatically for emphasis.

"I like the sound of Pixie Pandamonium," Katie grinned.

"It's absolutely perfect," Allura said, "Pixie Pandamonium. The Jammer that will finally bring us to victory."

"Yeesh, I thought Plax was intense," Katie smiled.

"It comes and goes in waves for us," Allura explained.

It was finally the big night. Katie got home from school on Friday and threw her backpack in the far corner of her bedroom immediately. There wasn't time for homework. There wasn't time for anything besides getting in the zone. She very carefully unpackaged her roller derby outfit. Hers matched the rest of the team's, except for the wheels and laces on her skates. The skates themselves were black, and the stitching alongside them pink, which were the team colors. The laces and wheels however, were green. 

Katie handled them with much more care than she had her backpack, even though her backpack was much heavier and looking back probably had her phone in it. She did not have time to be concerned about delicate cheaply made but expensive electronics. That, and she was a little scared to check. 

She got ready quickly, setting her skates aside and lacing up her high tops, which were also green. Her hair wasn't quite long enough for a ponytail, and for that, she envied Red. Her hair was thicker, so it grew faster. Not that Katie really liked having long hair, but this shaggy mess of curls was definitely not working. 

Whatever, she thought, clipping her hair back with a barrette. Her mother's hair was shorter than Katie's, shorter than Matt's, in fact, so there weren't ponytail holders in the house anyway. If there were, they were left behind by Red or Hunk. She hoped she could figure out how to cut her hair this summer, despite her rotten luck finding a hairdresser that knew what to do with her curls. Katie glanced at herself in the mirror. The black and pink, she thought, was very nice. Just then, she saw Wendy's car outside her window. Go time, she thought, racing out the door. 

* * *

Red was unreasonably amped for the first match of the season. She spent all day in class spaced out, thinking about the rush she got skating around the others. She had sketched more than a few rollerblades in her notebook as the day passed. Even almost got caught, as her art history professor came around to collect notebooks. She was completely pumped. 

As soon as she got home, she opened the box Coran had given to her. In it was her black and pink uniform. She had daydreamed about being on the roller derby team for so long that she almost couldn't believe that this was real. She very carefully laid her outfit on the bed. Black and pink baseball tee, tights and skirt to match. Elbow and knee pads with little broken heart symbols on them. The helmet was the only thing Coran handed to her outside the box. It would never have fit. 

She got ready as fast as she could, though it did slow to a grinding halt when it was time to put on her docs. She loved them to death. They were her coolest, most expensive, in fact, only pair of shoes. She didn't need other shoes. Her docs went with everything. That's how she reasoned it to herself when she bought them. Now, though, the extra time it took to lace them up was not Red's friend. She'd struggled with them all week long. As much as she hated to think it, she was going to have to invest in a pair of flip flops or something. 

She ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. She grinned. She looked awesome. She then looked at Wendy's makeup. Nah, she'd sweat it off. She wasn’t the biggest fan of makeup regardless. A little bit of cosmetic glitter. Perfect. She looked awesome. She pulled her thick, tangled hair into pigtails. She was going to have to get a haircut one of these days. Today was not that day. When that time came, Wendy swore she would drag her to a proper hairdresser, which Red did not like in favor of cutting it herself. Her father had cut his hair with his pocket knife, and she guessed she just thought it looked kind of cool. It didn't work as well with longer hair, as shown by her split ends. She wondered if other girls spent as much time as she did looking in the mirror thinking about their hair. 

"Ready to go?" Wendy asked. 

"Yes!" Red grinned.

* * *

They pulled up to the rec center and rushed inside with Wendy, who had volunteered to drive.

"Alright, I'm gonna go find a seat. Good luck out there!" Wendy lightly punched Red on the arm.

"You don't have to watch our match. There's a pool downstairs if you would rather," Wendy suggested.

"Are you kidding me? I love sports! Wouldn't miss this for the world!" Wendy assured her.

"There's a pool downstairs?" Katie asked.

"This is, like, a huge rec center. There's an ice rink downstairs, too," Red explained.

"There you guys are!" El ran up to them, "we've gotta hurry up and get ready."

Before they could protest, El was dragging them away. Red struggled with her boots once more, the team laced up their skates and got ready to rock and roll, literally.

The first match of the game was always the hardest, El had told them. Katie hoped this was true as she skated around the rink, starting out strong but getting slightly slower each jam as she tired out. Still faster than the others, though. Red was having trouble, too. She narrowly dodged getting checked a handful of times, until a girl who was the most ripped person Red had seen in real life slammed her into the side of the rink, hurting both of her shoulders in the process. The actual game was an hour, but with breaks, injuries and overall calamity, it felt like they had been at this all night. 

In the end, the team managed to win, if only by a single hair. 

* * *

After the match, Red and Katie collapsed together on a bench.

"Ugh. I'm dead," Katie groaned, "roll me out for trash day."

"I'm too tired to do anything. Like, too tired to eat kind of tired," Red mumbled.

"Well, you probably should eat something anyway, considering how absolutely gruelling that was," Allura pointed out. 

"Yeah. Let's go get something to eat, before we all, like, faint," El said.

"Pizza place next door," Flo suggested, "we can celebrate our first win this season. And our first win with Red and Katie."

"Too lazy to lace up my docs. I'm going over barefoot," Red stood up. Her legs wobbled.

"You brought doc martens? Those things are impossible to lace quickly. 

What were you thinking?" Plax asked.

"I really don't have other shoes. These things are expensive as hell," Red answered.

"Your shoes are pretty cool, I'd say it's worth it," Flo said.

"Still, you should probably have a good pair of backup shoes for derby purposes," Allura pointed out. 

"I'll go shopping for a cheap pair of shoes tomorrow," Red assured them.

"And the pizza place? You still need shoes, dude," Katie agreed.

"I think I have an extra pair of flats you can take. What shoe size are you?" Allura asked.

"Seven," standing up was a mistake. Red's legs felt like gelatin.

"Perfect!" Allura disappeared around the corner and returned with a pair of mary janes.

"Oh, no, I couldn't take your shoes," Red resisted.

"They've never been worn. Not the right size," Allura insisted, handing them to Red. 

"Thanks. I owe you one," Red smiled.

"Great. It's pizza time, if you girls are done flirting," Plax rolled her eyes. Red flushed so bad she lived up to her name.

"I didn't, uh, we weren't," Red sputtered.

"Relax," Plax wrapped her arm around Red, "just teasing."

The team walked over to the pizza place next door with their respective relatives and friends. They ordered about six different kinds, and plenty of soda and garlic knots. Red sat between Katie and that Allura girl. 

"First game of the season is always the hardest?" Katie asked.

"Always. Your body's not used to the pain yet. Don't worry, I haven't been able to feel my arms and legs since junior high," Plax picked up another slice of veggie lover's. 

"That is in no way comforting," Katie said.

"Eh, you two will be fine. It's a lot of fun. Like, a lot of fun. Getting hurt is just one of the drawbacks," El grabbed another garlic knot. 

"Please do not say that in front of my mother," Katie sighed.

"Do not say that in front of ME. My body is crying," Red interjected. 

"Nevertheless," I have a good feeling about this season," Coran grinned.

"Yeah. We're going to dominate," Plax said, punching the table for no good reason. 

"It's a new era for the team. There's nothing we can't do if we work hard and practice enough!" Allura smiled triumphantly. The team didn't know it yet, but this was going to be one incredible season.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the longest chapter to date, 19 pages! maybe my gremlin friends won't burn through it in 48 seconds, leaving me as deflated as a mother on a holiday whos three day labor is rewarded with thirty minutes of horking down food. (that was a joke, I'm very thrilled to have my friends be as enthusiastic as I am). Next chapter out soon, and it's gonna be a big one, so hope you guys are enjoying how it's shaping up! <3 also, I had to skim this whole thing to title it because I literally instantly forgot what happens in this chapter lmao


	5. My computer was dying as i was posting this and i couldn't think of a title so i panicked and this is what you get

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MY COMPUTER IS ABT TO ABANDON SHIP ENJOY SUCKERS

Katie had never been on a date before. At the very least, she had never been on a real one. Not with a girl, and especially not since she had been out as a trans lesbian. When she was in grade school, she played house at recess with her friends. She had been the only "boy" in their group. Kids don't really understand gender, but she remembered that her dad found it a little odd. He found everything that she did a little odd, in fact. Then again, he found most of what Matt did odd as well. He was a pretty normal guy, a prideful average joe. 

Mr Holt was perfectly happy being a pharmacist and not having all that many interesting work stories, coming home and turning on CNN to complain how the news always gave him a headache. He wasn't all that stern, he was just, you know, plain. He was wholly unprepared to have the strangest children alive. Katie still didn't understand what was particularly odd about a little boy playing house at recess, if she had not been a girl. Katie found it sensible that if girls would want to practice being adults, so would boys. Anyway, she played house with the other girls. 

She had a pretend kitchen and a pretend dog and a pretend wife. They were understood as married among the kindergarten class, and when they were not playing house, they would exchange the plumpest worms they could find. The little girls who love worms are the best ones, Katie discovered. They did not kiss, but they would hold their sweaty small hands together, and Katie considered herself very grown up for having a girlfriend. 

When she was in middle school, she had a girlfriend then, too. Her girlfriend had been a girl called Suzie, who wore her hair in tight, bouncy blonde curls. They sat during reading time and asked the teacher if they could read together, to which the teacher would always allow them so long as they were extremely quiet. Inevitably, they would somehow fuck this up and get sent outside the class. Joke's on the teacher, though, because that meant they could read as loud as they wanted to. 

The two of them were completely inseparable. They kissed a handful of times, outside the school between classes. In the classroom when the lights were low and they watched a movie. Of course, that still wasn't a real relationship. It was mostly to brag and because "boys" and girls weren't supposed to be friends. If you're a girl and a "boy", anyone of another gender within your line of sight is already theorized by adults to be your little boyfriend or girlfriend. "they are so cute together," the adults gush, making every child in the vicinity uncomfortable.

The girl moved away the summer before highschool, which was, incidentally, right when everything clicked for Katie. She had always wondered why she felt weird around her girlfriend. Not bad weird, but like something was missing. Like those dreams you have where everything in your house is mirrored. Not wrong, just off. Katie had lived her entire life that way, just a little off kilter. Figuring out you're a lesbian, figuring out you're trans, when the whole thing clicks, it's like looking at your life backwards too. Like you've just pulled at the thread of an old sweater, and the whole thing has come undone. 

Anyway, she had never been on a real date. She had no idea what one was even supposed to wear on a real date. In movies and tv shows, they always wore their nicest outfits. Katie considered that her actual nicest outfit, one that had been worn to multiple weddings and family bat mitzvahs, didn't really seem like the fit for a movie date. She'd asked her friends. Red had told her to wear a full suit of armor. Lance told her that she should be wearing her last halloween costume, and Hunk suggested her Ren Faire outfit. She hated her friends. 

She dug through her closet, and it seemed that a witch had placed a curse on it. Her favorite outfits were suddenly a pairing of the most completely eye searing and tacky garments that she had seen in her life. She groaned, hoping to find something that Leandro gave her from his sisters. That had been the first thing that he had done when she came out. A huge box with a green and pink bow on it, addressed from him and his older sisters. He had known what it was like to start over your wardrobe suddenly. 

At last, she laid eyes on a nice set of suspenders with cats on them, and for some reason Katie decided that she needed to have it on right now immediately. She picked out a pair of black jeans and a nice dress shirt to go with it. When she looked in the mirror, she immediately changed her mind and decided that it was a horrible outfit, one that made her look like a kindergarten hipster, but at that point it was too late to change and she only had time to freshen herself up in front of the mirror to make sure she looked fabulous for the event of standing awkwardly next to a pretty girl attempting not to combust and hopefully holding a hand or two in the process. She was grateful, at the very least, that the movie would be a silent affair and she wouldn't have to fumble over small talk. Not that she and El had issues conversing, quite the opposite. That's how they wound up on the same roller derby team to begin with.

Her mother's bathroom was better to do this in, she decided, even though a boy and a girl shared both bathrooms in the house. There was too much Matt energy in there to even begin to practice functioning normally. Matt tripped on his own shoelaces on the steps of the highschool on the first day of school. Bad energy.

She inspected her teeth in the mirror, grateful that her parents sprung for the invisible teeth straighteners that don't interfere with one's ability to eat popcorn, an essential part of the movie date. Her face seemed clean, her hair was as neat as the wild mess of curls could be, which is to say, not a lot. She had discovered long ago that messing with it could anger it. It looked nice at this length. God, she was vain. She supposed that was a good thing, at least, compared to having rock bottom self esteem, the way that she used to. 

Katie was a very pretty girl. She knew this, and yet she still perceived herself as some sort of cave troll. Side effect of being a girl, she supposed. Soon enough, her mother called her from the other room and asked her if she was ready. She could no longer fuss over her appearance in the mirror, much as she wanted to do that for hours on end. Katie was as ready as she ever would be. 

On the ride over, her mother didn't speak. She was sort of a quiet woman, feminine in a more classical way, despite her short hair. She wore a lot of dresses and skirts and pearls. Katie had always assumed she had one pair of pearl earrings and one pearl necklace, but found out one day cleaning her mother's bathroom that she actually had so many pearls, each practically identical, that she switched daily. When she found out, Katie for some reason stressed an extreme amount over it. 

Katie had one card of green stud earrings. They all looked different, which at least brought some spice into the mix, but Katie would wear the same two pairs for weeks. At this very moment, it is important to note, she wore frog and green flower earrings. The very best. Leandro bought them for her, for her birthday.

Her mother dropped her off with sort of a strained smile, and Katie pondered as she walked over to meet El whether that was the regular mom strained smile or something else, something different. Something that fit into the other things that Katie didn't understand lately. El wore a cool outfit, much cooler than Katie's. A regular flannel that she would normally have tied around her waist was buttoned up now, and she was wearing the first jeans Katie had seen her in that weren't ripped.

"You look awesome," El grinned.

"Not like a kindergarten hipster?" Katie asked, and El laughed. She took Katie's wrist and led her over to the box office. She could have grabbed Katie's hand, but she grabbed her wrist instead. It was too soon, thought El. They bought their tickets to some fun looking teen comedy, a giant thing of popcorn and two of the largest sodas that Katie had seen in her life. It was cheaper to get the big popcorn than two smaller ones, they had clumsily reasoned. 

The girls entered the movie, and it looked like the two of them had missed a handful of previews. Katie considered the previews her favorite part, because she was weird, so this was unfortunate. Mid-spring is when they play a lot of previews for horror movies that were going to come out in September and October. Most of them seemed to be cheesy reboots.

The movie was alright, It even had a gay girl as one of the leads. Of course, because it was hollywood, the lesbian looked nothing like any lesbians that she had ever seen in real life. In fact, the straight character looked like more of a lesbian. You're supposed to be surprised when she's not.

The quality of the movie didn't really matter all that much, she supposed, as Katie spent most of it trying to find the perfect time to hold El's hand. She brushed up against it reaching for popcorn and nearly had to rip her own limb off out of shock and embarrassment. El didn't even seem to notice. She might have bee trying not to look flustered, putting all of her concentration into that. Someone on screen had made a joke that made El and a great deal of the rest of the audience laugh loudly. She had a really nice laugh. 

El seemed to notice that Katie was struggling not to implode, so she took the initiative and awkwardly grabbed Katie's hand. This did not make Katie feel like she was going to implode less, but it did make her quite a bit less nervous. 

When the movie was over, the two of them decided to play air hockey. El won most times, and Katie let herself think that this was just because it was their first date, and her heart felt like an exploding lightbulb, so her game was probably a little off. 

Which was only acceptable because Matt wasn't there, and therefore couldn't scold her for sucking so much. She didn't understand why he did that. Matt was the worst at air hockey. He always started a game arrogantly, saying he was some kind of champion, but he had no hand eye coordination, and he had no rhythm. This was fortunate for Katie, who got to win constantly, but presumably really awful for Matt's flute instructor. 

When they were done playing air hockey, the two of them texted their parents and sat outside together on the bench by the water fountain. When she was little, she used to run around through the fountain for about twenty minutes after movies. She decided, very wisely, not to do this with a pretty girl watching, especially with a phone in her pocket.

"Here, hold these," El said, handing Katie her phone and wallet. She seemed to concern herself with no such things, as she went ahead and began running around in the fountain like a headless chicken. She returned and held out her hands, offering Katie a turn. Katie ran around like an idiot for a few minutes, and collapsed on the bench, giggling.

"I hope that my clothes dry by the time Nyma gets here," El tugged at her wet flannel. It wasn't quite hot enough yet to air dry quite so fast. It would be fine. Her clothes would no longer be dripping, at the very least. 

"You're a lot of fun, El," Katie grinned.

"You're a lot of fun, too," El smiled back, and took Katie's hand again. 

"Nyma is gonna be here any minute," she groaned, "she's gonna kill me."

"Next time, we can do this before the movie. Leave ourselves extra time to dry off," Katie suggested.

"Next time?" El blushed.

"Yeah, I guess I did just say that. But, like, I only want to go out again if you do," she assured her

"Katie, I asked you out because I like you, remember?" El couldn't seem to make direct eye contact when she said this.

"Yeah, I know. I like you, too," Katie smiled.

"I would really like if we could, you know, I mean, if you would like to, and only if you would like to," Katie couldn't picture a girl as cool as El tripping over her words like this. She thought that was reserved for dorks and losers, like, well, Katie wasn't a loser or a dork, she reasoned. She was just shy. She couldn't picture a girl as cool as El being this shy. 

"El?" Katie asked.

"Yes?" El squeaked.

"Would you be my girlfriend?" Katie felt so awkward asking like that, but El was drowning out there.

"Yes. I would love to be your girlfriend," El grinned.

When their rides arrived, El hugged Katie and climbed, still almost completely soaked, onto the back of Nyma’s motorcycle. Katie's mother rolled her eyes at her daughter's childish shenanigans. It was a really good first date.

* * *

At practice on Monday, Katie and El were joined at the hip. Red was there, too, sort of hovering around them in hopes to avoid the other girls and having to converse with them. It must have been a special level of hell that came with wanting to be friends with everyone but being so painfully shy that you more often than not come across as rude and quiet.

"Alright, girls!" Coran excitedly clapped his hands together, "I have an important announcement to make!" 

Plax rolled her eyes. He did this every year. Katie and Red, however, were on the edge of their seats.

"This weekend will be our first away game!" Coran grinned, "We're competing against the Brawlin' Dawlings!"

"They're going down!" Plax chimed in from the back.

"Thank you, Plax, for helping the team get pumped," Coran pumped his fist in the air, "now, the team is a couple hours away. These out of town games involve a handful of things I want you all to be prepared for."

He took out a comically long list that seemed to be several pieces of regular receipt paper taped together at the ends. If it was any longer, it would drag along the floor. 

"Get ready," El snorted. Coran took a deep, dramatic breath.

"Going on a bus will be involved, there will be no fare, but I will suggest bringing a certain amount of money anyway," he was talking faster than Katie thought was possible, "the game will start at eight o'clock and by the time we are finished, it will be too late to travel back. This involves staying overnight at a hotel, so I would like you to bring one of each of the following things."

"He was a boy scout. Get. Ready." El repeated.

"Toothbrush, toothpaste, pajamas, a book to read because it will be a long drive, your derby uniform, a change of clothes for before and after the game as well as the morning ride back, hairties clips and whatever else you girls need to keep your hair out of your faces during the big game, any extra a snack for the road and a snack for the ride back, extra knee elbow shin and wrist guards, extra shoelaces, pepper spray and an emergency whistle, and as much money as you can justify bringing in case anything I just listed gets lost and also to help pay to take you girls out to eat. All around, you will probably need fifty dollars."

"Jesus christ, how am I gonna remember all of that?" Katie murmured.

"Of course, at the end of practice, I will hand you each a packet that contains one of the following:: a list of all the items you should bring in case you forget, an assigned away trip buddy who you will be rooming with during every away game, and a sheet detailing all of the important information about future away games. You must be eighteen years of age or older to join us on this trip, and I expect all of your forms, except for yours, Allura, back here Wednesday night by the end of practice, or you cannot come to the away game. Thank you all for listening," Coran grinned. He walked away, leaving the girls a precious few moments to process the information they had been given. 

"Oh my god, that is so much stuff he told us to bring. I don't think all that shit is gonna fit in my backpack," Katie nervously tugged at her skate laces.

"You could bring a duffel bag," El suggested.

"I don't keep a duffel bag," Katie explained, "because I've never been on a sports team and I'm also not a serial killer."

"You've been dating for like, six minutes and you're already lying to her?" Red shook her head.

"She doesn't need to know about my life of crime, Red, I have to protect the people I love from the truth," Katie said sternly.

"Go out and buy one?" El continued to suggest things.

“There are moths coming out of my wallet,” Katie blinked.

"Jesus christ, quit whining, take my spare," Red instructed.

"Alright, now we have bigger problems," Katie realized, "why do you have TWO duffel bags? What kind of serial killer are YOU?"

"The fucking efficient kind," Red explained, "actually, softball."

"That's right," Katie nodded, still suspiciously squinting.

Coran re-entered the room and promptly told all of them it was time to stop goofing around and start actual practice.

* * *

"Jesus christ, is this man a part time park ranger? Who would think to be this prepared?" Hunk asked, squinting at the paper.

"I don't know, man," Katie sighed.

"Why the fuck do you need pepper spray for an out of town trip?" Leandro leaned in next to Hunk.

"This reads like a college road trip checklist," Hunk nodded, "did he mention the possible use of the pepper spray?"

"Yeah, well, you know, he doesn't want us to die of starvation or of random men foolishly attacking mobs of angry teenage girls," Katie shrugged.

"I bet Hunk fifty dollars that one of you somehow manages to spray yourself in the face," Leandro announced.

"That's a horrible thing to bet on!" Hunk pointed out, making a horrified face even though he was totally game

"Why would you think we'd pepper spray ourselves?" Katie asked.

"Because Red is reckless and impulsive and I once saw her put a slice of bologna into the library paper shredder because it looked fun-" Leandro explained.

"Which I got away with, by the way," Red interjected.

"Yeah, but that shredder was never the same and that entire room smelled like a deli for the rest of the month, and everyone who didn't know thought it was our librarian," Hunk looked wistfully at the ceiling

"And Katie is clumsy," Leandro finally continued.

"Alright, I'm out of here," Red began to stand up.

"Oh, sit back down. You didn’t drive here. You're not going anywhere," Hunk pointed out.

"Alright. I'm sitting back down. Not because of you, though. Because I want shitty diner food more than anything else in the world right now," Red narrowed her eyes.

"Speaking of, where the hell is Shiro?" Lance leaned out of the booth. Speak of the devil, Shiro was skating over to them at that very moment.

"Hey, guys, sorry. We're a little short staffed back there. I'm running a lot of drive thru orders," Shiro explained, breathlessly.

"All good. Who's watching the drive thru right now?" Leandro asked.

"Nobody. Order quickly," Shiro instructed in a for the love of god please help me sort of way. 

"Minion, bring us a round of chocolate shakes, and bring me your finest double decker cheeseburger with shoestring fries," Leandro instructed dramatically.

"Please don't call me minion, Leandro," Shiro sighed.

"I'll have the same," Hunk said.

"I'll have two large orders of cheese fries," Red chimed in.

"I'll have that, too," Katie smiled.

"Coming right up," Shiro skated away as fast as humanly possible.

"Jesus, two large orders for both of you?" Leandro questioned.

"We're burning off a lot of calories at practice," Red explained.

"You need to be putting fuel into your body. Cheese fries are not fuel," Leandro pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, and I suppose you're the picture of health with your double decker cheeseburger and large chocolate shake," Hunk rolled his eyes.

"Babe, don't turn against me," Leandro looked horrifically offended. Hunk shrugged.

"I feel bad for Shiro, jesus christ," Katie glanced back in the direction of the kitchen.

"Poor guy's gonna have a heart attack by the time he's thirty working in this diner," Leandro furrowed his brow, "let's hope that he, like, doesn't die before he can do something he actually likes."

"Amen," Hunk nodded, "I'd probably have throttled someone already."

"Someone should apply and take some of the workload off of him," Leandro reasoned.

"What about you?" Red asked.

"Hell no. I would rather die. Especially when I’ve got a job, sisters rehearsal and class," Leandro said matter of factly

"Maybe I'll pick up some extra hours," Red announced, "you know, over the summer. Work mornings and stuff. Help my cousins out. Help Shiro out, too."

"We will cherish your noble sacrifice," Hunk nodded solemnly.

"Maybe we should all pick up some hours," Leandro suggested, "work full time. You know, to build character or whatever our parents are always saying?"

"Whatever character a full time job would build for me, I don't think any of us are gonna like," Red answered. 

"It would also be nice to get a new car," Hunk suggested.

"I am not getting rid of that car," Leandro insisted, "it's part of my family."

"Your little sister was born in it, so I can't say that's untrue," Hunk shook his head.

"Break my mom's heart. Is that what you want, Hunk? For me to break my mother's poor fragile heart?" Lance asked.

"It would be cool for me to fix up my bike, you know. A motorcycle is pretty much useless without things like working handles,” Red thought aloud.

"A car that you’re always running other people’s errands in may be of the same level of uselessness," Leandro nodded in solidarity.

"Yeah, because you put off getting your license for so long that your mom gave you that car as a desperate motivational tactic," Hunk retorted.

"And it still didn't work for like another year, because cars are scary as hell," Leandro said.

"Amen to that," Katie nodded, "still. I can't wait to get my license."

"Now I'm just the group chaperone, though," :Leandro pointed out, "so cherish not having to drive a million people around, you know, while you can."

"Maybe you're right," Katie admitted.

"I am always right," Leandro grinned.

"Order up!" Shiro shouted, rolling over to them with their food. 

"Thanks!" They all said, almost in perfect unison. 

"Thanks for being so understanding, guys, I promise, I would give you all better service if I could," Shiro assured them. 

"Dude, quit apologizing. You clearly do not have time for this," Hunk pointed out. Shiro nodded and rolled away.

"How he carries four plates and a drink tray at a time on roller blades, I will never know," Leandro squinted.

"May have grossly overestimated the amount of cheese fries I'd be able to hande," Katie glared at her plate.

"I didn't," Red said, and then dove on her plate.

"So, Katie, how was your date?" Hunk asked. Ears all around the table perked up.

"Good. Really good, actually. She beat me at air hockey, I held her hand, I ate so much fucking popcorn I thought I was gonna detonate, and I asked her to be my girlfriend," Katie grinned.

"Katie's got a giiiiiirlfriend," Leandro teased.

"Dude, I will throat punch you," Katie warned.

"I'm not afraid of you. You weigh ninety pounds soaking wet," Leandro scoffed.

"I'm gonna use my pepper spray on you to make you unable to fight back and then while you're crying your eyes out I will grab a step ladder, throat punch you, and then skate away so fast that the police will never be able to find me," Katie laughed evilly.

"Wow, I can't believe you would betray me like that," Leandro glared.

"Anyway," Hunk rolled his eyes, "that sounds like a great first date."

"Thanks, I thought I was gonna die the whole time," Katie explained.

"What did you wear?" Leandro asked. Katie took out her phone and showed him a picture.

"You look cute!" Hunk grinned.

"I look like an infant film nerd," Katie corrected him.

"What does that MEAN?" Leandro demanded.

"Nothing good, obviously," Katie said. 

"The strangest child," Leandro shook his head.

"How did this happen? All of you have relationships and all I have are these curly fries. Curly fries can't take someone to the summer cotillion, guys," Red sighed.

"I thought you thought the summer cotillion was stupid?" Hunk pointed out.

"That is your takeaway from that concerning word salad she just spit out?" Leandro asked.

"I don't know how you don't have a girlfriend. You ought to have, like, five by now," Katie said, "you know, on account of being gorgeous."

"I'm greasy. Girls don't like greasy," Red looked up from her curly fries. 

"You're greasy and weird, but you're also pretty and cool. You're like a gecko," Katie assured her.

"Thanks," Red laughed.

"So, how's rehearsal going for you guys?" Katie asked. Instead of responding, Leandro made the decision to make the noise of a caveman gently screaming.

"He's right," Hunk nodded.

"What?" Katie asked.

"The last couple times have been a little rough. Leandro's mom asked her to watch her little cousin. She's adorable, but she kept trying to join in," Hunk explained.

"Which would have been fine, of course, if she knew any of the words and wasn't just going LALALALA," Leandro demonstrated, "and awkwardly twirling around on stage."

"Your little cousin is a tiny monster in a tutu and I absolutely adore her," Katie smiled.

"That she is, Kate. That she is," Leandro nodded.

"And then tonight, while you guys were at practice, we went to the pier to rehearse and found out that it's booked for the whole freaking day by some swedish interpretive dance group."

"They're not bad," Hunk chimed in.

"That is neither here nor there. They didn't help set up. Just slipped Mr Hernandez a twenty to practice there," Leandro glared, "stupid blonde weirdos."

"We'll practice tomorrow after school instead," Hunk assured him. 

"Ah, what?" Katie protested, "You guys aren't gonna go to the movies with us?"

"You just went to the movies," Hunk pointed out.

"That is not even remotely the point and you know it," Katie pointed an accusatory finger at her friends. 

"Katie, please, don't get him all riled up," Hunk groaned.

"Oh, it's too late. I'm riled up. I'm riled way way up," Leando was breathing heavily.

"We get the point," Hunk placed a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder.

"I just want Katie to understand that if they didn't book the stage for the whole day, we would have time for a little break here and there. But nooooo," Leandro threw up his hands in defeat.

"You have a good voice and you've gotta have the song down by now," Red chimed in.

"That also is not the point," Leandro narrowed his eyes, "the point, Red, is that I want all the practice that I can get so that I can truly dazzle. I didn't get up early enough in the morning to watch the sunrise so I could set up a stupid stage for me to stumble around and just give an okay performance. I have the range, damn it, and the world must know!" Leandro shouted triumphantly.

"If there was anyone else here right now, we'd probably be getting escorted out of here as we speak," Red mumbled.

"You were never this over the top until you joined this showcase," Katie protested, "I want a refund. This version of Leandro behaves like those mothers on Dance moms."

"Did you really just insult me at the expense of admitting that you watch Dance Moms, Katie?" Leandro asked.

"My dad used to watch it. Well, not watch it. He used to have it as background noise when he read. The amount of information I retained against my will is truly horrifying."

"We all have one reality show we've seen way too much, because a family member liked it. My moms like tiny house hunting. Well, they don't, actually, they like to sit there and complain about small houses becoming a fad and how rich white people are gentrifying them," Hunk explained.

"That sounds much more educational, at least, than what they have going on over on the tlc network," Red pointed out.

"Yeah. Eat your food, Red," Hunk instructed.

* * *

The following night, Katie hung out at Red's house. She loved it over at Red's. It was like a second home to Katie. It wasn't really the same the other way around. Katie's parents freaked Red out. She didn't understand that always, but lately it was making more and more sense.

"My parents are acting weird," Katie announced, not looking up from her homework.

"Like, more than usual?" Red asked.

"Yes. More than usual. My mom's clingy lately. Really really clingy. And my dad is just like. I dunno. They're hiding something, for sure," Katie squinted, "What did you get for question eight on the practice exam?" 

"Uh, 87," Red answered.

"Well, that's odd, we're doing English right now," Katie raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well, I'm not really concentrating," Red hung her head off the back of the couch, "I hate college."

"Me too," Katie groaned.

"You're taking math because it has to do with your field, because you're good at it, not because it’s required," Red glared, "you've lost homework-based complaining rights."

:"You're graduating two years earlier than I am," Katie pointed out. 

"Yeah, alright," Red conceded, "so, like, weird how?"

"I already told you!" Katie shut her notebook.

"Yeah, but moms are supposed to be clingy, and when you talked about your dad you went 'well, I don't know'," Red mimicked her with a southern accent, which was strange for a lot of reasons, namely that Katie had never even been to the south. Unless you count socal, which Katie did not.

"Good point. Are you sure you don't mind me venting?" Katie asked.

"I'm sure," Red shut her book. No more constructive studying was going on.

"Well, I mean, I first noticed it a couple weeks ago. The other day when your bike broke down, My mom insisted on giving me a ride to my date, even though that’s usually when Dad goes to that side of town to pretend to know how to play poker. Mom works mornings, Dad works nights. It makes sense. But my mom was still in her pajamas. I think she called in sick, but she seemed perfectly fine to me. And I've noticed things. Like, I think about things that happened a couple of weeks ago and suddenly they're making me think," Katie adjusted her glasses.

"Such as?" Red asked, pulling her hair into pigtails. Her hair wasn't quite long enough to pull into a ponytail just yet.

"They haven't been calling us by our names. Like, it's always string bean or kiddo," Katie squinted, "just little tiny things like that. I'm really worried. They're being like extra affectionate. I'm really worried that something's wrong. Like, what if mom's sick again? That would explain the pajamas. What if there's something wrong with Dad's heart. The man lives off of coffee and steak. Or what if my dog is getting put down?" Katie started chewing her nails subconsciously between sentences.

"Katie, you're talking yourself into an anxiety attack. Just, like, talk to them. Tell them you've noticed them acting weird and that you want to know what's going on," Red suggested.

"Do you think my parents have ever been honest with me in their entire lives with this entire stuff?" Katie narrowed her eyes.

"I'm sure they were honest with you, like, before you were born, you know, when you didn't exist," Red scratched at her arm.

"I don't even know what that's supposed to mean, Red," Katie folded her arms. Red shrugged, and Katie sighed, "I'll try the honesty thing."

"It's what Leandro would lecture you into doing," Red pointed out.

"That bastard is right a lot more than we give him credit for," Katie shook her head, "anyway, onto more pressing matters."

"Do you have a pressing matter in mind or are we gonna turn on the news and get a stress headache like your dad?" Red asked, half sarcastically.

"The assigned roommate thing," Katie answered, "like, what if I don't get along with my roommate? What if she thinks I'm annoying, and does everything in her power to drive me out of the room."

"Those girls are all very cool. Do you just stress out about nothing? Is this a thing that you do for fun?" Red crossed her arms.

"Who did you get?" Katie changed the subject to avoid confronting the fact that she was just a blob of anxiety with glasses.

"I'm rooming with Allura, she seems nice," Red answered. The corners of her mouth sort of turned up. It was impossible to miss if you knew how rarely Red smiled when she wasn't laughing.

"I've got, uh, Plax, who seems like the most intense motherfucker alive," Katie answered.

"Alright, I changed my mind, I would be anxious about that, too," Red nodded sagely.

"That is not helpful, Red," Katie said sternly.

"I rarely am," Red pointed out, "anyway, I'm hungry. Want to order a pizza?"

"How do you afford all this pizza? Where is this money? You don't even work full time!" Katie was suspicious.

"Wendy is taking care of family stuff this week," Red explained, "on Sunday night she dropped a fifty on the table and told me to not light the house on fire and only call her if I did. Also, I was asking if you wanted to pitch. If I wasn't, I would have just said that I was ordering a pizza, and you would have been powerless to stop me."

"If you have a fifty, why do you need me to pitch?"

"I'm supposed to buy groceries and stuff. We're going to an away game. I'm already pushing it."

"Yeah, I'll pitch. I get to pick the soda, though," Katie insisted.

"Are you kidding me? I always have soda. That's one of the base level fuels for college students. Soda with ridiculous amounts of caffeine."

"If you cut Wendy open she'd bleed root beer."

"Root Beer doesn't have caffeine in it. She's bleeding that lemon lime shit with, like, all the caffeine in a pot of coffee. She gets up at four in the morning for class sometimes and she would die without it."

"You know, maybe I'm not looking forward to med school as much as I thought, knowing Wendy and all."

"Luckily for you, pizza is perfect food for questioning everything."

* * *

Katie of course left all the packing for Friday after class, like, an hour before she needed to leave for the trip. Luckily, she did still have the list. 

"Mom, I need pepper spray," she yelled out of her door.

"What do you need pepper spray for?" Mrs Holt asked.

"It's on the checklist!" Katie shouted back.

"You're still not packed? Honey, you have fifty six minutes!" her mom huffed.

"NEVERMIND!" Katie hollered. Perhaps consulting her mother, who always prepared for things a million years early, was not the best course of action. Her mother entered the room as she was furiously stuffing clothes into her duffel bag.

"Here you go, Dear," Mrs Holt tossed her pepper spray, and Katie dumped it in as fast as she could manage. It occured to Katie just then, in all the madness, that she had forgotten to confront her mother.

"Shit-uh, shoot," Katie corrected herself, "mom, I need to talk to you about something really quick before we leave.

"Sure, Sweetie! What do you need?" Her mother put on an unconvincing, elastic smile.

"You and Dad have been acting really weird lately," Katie jammed her toothbrush and toothpaste into a plastic bag.

"No, we haven’t!" her mother protested, still smiling. 

"That's proof," Katie looked up, "if you weren't hiding something, you would have gotten offended and asked how you'd been acting weird. And you wouldn't be smiling like the Joker in Batman."

"Which Batman?" Mrs Holt asked.

"The first one. Jack Nicholson. And don't change the subject?" Katie tossed her shoes in, paused, realizing she still needed her shoes, and sheepishly took them back out.

"How did you know?" Mrs Holt sighed.

"You know all those things you do to protect us from things we can't handle?" Katie tossed her deodorant in.

"Yes..." Mrs Holt furrowed her brow.

"Well, not one of them is convincing," Katie explained.

"Alright," Mrs Holt huffed, "we didn't want to worry you."

"Too late. You already have me thinking you're sick, the dog's getting put down and the house is going to blow up," Katie looked up again. 

"Nothing like that, Dear. Nobody's hurt, nobody's dying. I promise that I would tell you right away," Mrs Holt shook her head.

"So, what is it?" Katie raised an eyebrow, rolling up her pajamas.

"Well, I'm not gonna tell you just yet."

"Mom!" 

"I know! I just don't want to answer one question only to leave you with about a million more," Mrs Holt explained, "please, please do not mention any of this to your brother until we can discuss it as a family.:"

"When will that be?" Katie demanded. Mrs Holt worried her lip.

"Tomorrow night, when you get back," she assured Katie.

"I have plans tomorrow night," Katie protested.

"Yeah, well, lately it seems that you're busy every night," Mrs Holt rolled her eyes, "it's really important that we talk about this. Just...just give your father and I a day to prepare what we want to say."

"Okay, mom," Katie mumbled, "I'll move some stuff around."

"Thank you," Mrs Holt smiled. She hugged her for a really long time, and then left the room. As Katie zipped the bag shut, she considered that Red had also probably procrastinated until the last minute.

* * *

"And toothpaste!" Wendy read off the list. Red tossed the toothpaste into her bag.

"Check!" Red responded.

"Alright. That was the last item on the list. You're all good," Wendy set the list back down.

"I probably should not have waited until right now to do that," Red sighed, slumping the heavy bag over her shoulders.

"Well, you know, you work better under pressure," Wendy pointed out, "runs in the family."

"That was never a quality Dad demonstrated," Red retorted.

"Yeah, no, your dad was a disaster," Wendy agreed, "the rest of us. Mom. Our grandparents."

"Are you sure you don't mind driving me to the rec center?" Red asked, "I know you're busy with school work, and I keep asking you to drive me places."

"Oh, please. We've gotta look out for each other," Wendy smiled, but there was a hint of strain.

"Are you okay?" Red asked.

"Yeah, you know, just excited the school year is almost over. Less of a headache," Wendy answered.

"Are you sure that's all?" Red asked.

"we're just...coming up on the anniversary, you know," Wendy looked down.

"Oh. Yeah, I know," Red placed a hand on Wendy’s shoulder, "sorry I asked."

"No, it's okay. We have to talk about it some time, right? Like, outside of meetings, I mean," Wendy pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah I guess we do," Red nodded solemnly. 

"For what it's worth, I think he would have been proud of both of us," Wendy said.

"Are you sure about that?" Red sat down.

"Well, I'm very proud of you. You're doing great in school, you're doing sports, you're a better version of yourself than you've ever been," Wendy grinned.

"EVen, like, you know, his attitude on certain things," Red looked anywhere but directly towards Wendy.

"Your dad was a jackass sometimes. Just like mom. He was stubborn, and set in his ways. But I think he would have come around. I really really do. You're, like, gorgeous," Wendy encouraged her.

"Yeah, you don't have to lie to make me feel better, Corinne," Red rolled her eyes.

"No, seriously. I'm jealous of you sometimes. You're seriously like, ridiculously pretty. Glowing since you came out. Hand to god. Not that being pretty is what counts, or anything, but you know what I mean," Wendy wrapped an arm around Red.

"I love you, Wendy," Red blurted out. Wendy looked surprised. Red wasn't really one for like, expressing her feelings and stuff like that.

"I love you too, Red," Wendy stood up, "now that we have sappy bullshit out of the way, are you ready to go kick that other team's ass?"

"I'm ready to crush them," Red answered.

"Good. Because, seriously, we have to go immediately. Like, if you weren't ready, you would be screwed."

Red laughed. 

* * *

When they arrived at the rec center, they barely had time to greet the other girls before Coran was ushering them onto the bus. He was practically strongarming them into their seats. Katie and Red picked a seat towards the middle and just tried to stay clear of the stampede of girls. There were nowhere near enough girls to fill the entire bus, and they could have easily taken their own seats, but Katie and Red were anxious and both needed to be talked out of their own anxiety.

"So, I talked to my mom," Katie attempted to maneuver her duffel bag somewhere that didn't interfere with her ability to sit down. She failed at this, and sat the bag on the floor, causing her knees to crunch up to her chest. 

"Oh yeah?" Red opted to throw the bag behind her into an empty seat.

"Yeah. She says we need to talk after I get back, but she doesn't want me to worry about it," Katie continued.

"I'm guessing you're still worried though," Red squinted.

"Of course I am. Don't worry about it," Katie rolled her eyes, "I would have rather she just kept pretending that nothing was going on."

"Uh huh. Why?" Red leaned against the window.

"We had a good system going! They could pretend that nothing was going on, I could pretend that I didn't notice them acting so weird," Katie explained.

"I see," Red didn't look away from the window.

"Now it's in the air. It's tangible. I know that something's wrong, and it's wrong enough that mom thinks that not telling me before a trip is less worrying than telling me and being done with it," Katie sighed.

"Maybe that wasn't the best advice I could give you," Red furrowed her brow.

"Oh no, rest assured that your advice would have worked perfectly if anyone in my family knew how to act like a normal goddamned person," Katie reassured her.

"That does not make me feel better," Red shook her head.

"I just hope that it doesn't affect my ability to kick ass at tonight's game," Katie continued on as if she hadn't heard Red, "I was already nervous. Now I'm nervous squared."

"Nervous meta," Red responded.

"Is it normal for your stomach to feel like it's doing backflips?" Katie asked.

"I don't think that's normal, no," Red answered.

"I think I'm gonna hurl," Katie leaned her head against the back of the seat in front of them.

"That I can help with," Red reached into her duffel bag and pulled out a smaller paper bag within it.

"What the fuck, Red?" Katie was perplexed.

"What?"

"You just carry that around?" Katie squinted.

"You never know when you're gonna hurl," Red shrugged.

"You are a strange, strange person," Katie shook her head.

"Maybe, but where else would you get a paper bag right now?" Red responded.

"What were you planning on doing with the bag after I hurled into it?" Katie raised an eyebrow.

"Throw it out the window," she said, in sort of a duh tone of voice.

"And what? Just take out a poor unsuspecting kid on a bike?" Katie was getting more stressed and confused by the second.

"What the fuck are you guys talking about?" Nyma peaked her head over the seat in front of them.

"Nothing," Katie said.

"Hurl," Red answered.

"Well, either way, you're confusing and alarming everyone on the bus," Nyma declared.

"There's no way we're talking loud enough for everyone to hear," Red pointed out.

"You're certainly talking too loud for me to be able to take a nap," Nyma complained.

"You're trying to take a nap on a bus full of rowdy teenage girls?" Red asked.

"Yeah, that sounds like a you problem, Nyma," Katie agreed.

"You win this round," she squinted, and disappeared behind the seat.

"Jesus christ, what were we even talking about?" Katie asked.

"Hurl," Red repeated herself.

"Before that, you weirdo," Katie glared lovingly at her.

"Oh. Uh, I don't remember," Red answered.

Neither of them knew where to go with that discussion, so Red just handed Katie an earbud, and the two did their best to just zone completely out for the rest of the ride. It didn't block off all of the noise for either of them, one ear free each as they heard sentence fragments from the other girls. Except, of course, for Nyma. Nyma was asleep. In case you forgot.

They arrived at the rec center in the nearby town that could be described as rurally terrifying, and Coran rushed them off the bus as fast as he possibly could. The girls rushed in and changed as fast as they could. The locker room was filled with angry swearing teenage girls. They rushed out onto the track and Katie found herself wondering why they didn't schedule leaving a little earlier than they did to prevent rushing them around like sheep on a farm.

It was a good game. 

A real nailbiter, the two teams neck and neck until about the last second. Katie was moving as fast as she possibly could, but it still somehow didn't feel fast enough. She suddenly remembered what she had been anxious about as she rounded the track, narrowly missing crashing into Allura at top speeds. Katie was barely powering through. 

She was sure her body was going to disintegrate like a vampire turning into dust when stepping into the sunlight as soon as she stopped moving. It was imperative that she kept moving. She could feel herself slowing down, and she remembered how Plax said her body would get used to the movement. Not that it got better, but that she'd get used to it. By some miracle, the game ended, and Katie's team won, but only by four points.

"Not our best," Plax grumbled, tossing her helmet to the bench when they entered the locker room again. Oh, yeah, she was sharing a room with this competitive spirit. Katie gulped.

* * *

“So, what’s your story?” Red asked as she tossed a duffel bag on the floor.

“What do you mean?” Allura was struggling to free her hair from her ponytail.

“Why do you do roller derby?” Red cautiously lifted the mattress to inspect the underside.

“Why not?” Allura shrugged.

“Well I just, I guess I sort of assumed there had to be like, a story there, you know. You don’t really seem like the type of girl to throw hits and stuff,” Red set the mattress down and sat on it.

“Why do you think that? Because you saw me ice skating you think you’ve got me figured out?” Allura was starting to get slightly defensive.

“That’s completely out of left field,” Red locked eyes with Allura.

“Well I’m very curious to hear what exactly you meant by that,” Allura crossed her arms.

“Nope, not doing whatever this is, forget I asked,” Red boredly fished her headphones out of her backpack.

“I’m just tired of people thinking I’m delicate,” Allura furrowed her brow.

“And I’m tired of people using me as a target for all their weird rants about their problems,” Red retorted, “I’m all maxed out today. we’re not accepting messages at this time.”

“...Can we start over?” Allura asked. Red paused. With careful consideration, she tossed the headphones on the bed.

“Okay,” Red folded her arms.

“I shouldn’t have gotten defensive,” Allura finally said, “I’m just...I don’t know, people have the tendency to treat me with kid gloves. That’s not your fault or your problem.”

“Well, you didn’t have to tell me that,” Red fiddled with the spikes on her bracelet, “I wasn’t saying you were too dainty to be tough. I just thought you were very sweet for someone on a roller derby team.”

“You think I’m sweet?” Allura looked at Red.

“Yeah, well, that was before you started yellin at me,” Red smiled halfway.

“Yeah, I sure showed you!” Allura laughed.

“Also, for the record, I don’t think that ice skating is dainty,” Red continued.

“No?”

“You’re moving very fast with blades attached to you on the slipperiest and hardest surface known to man,” Red pointed out, “it takes a lot of skill to do that.

“Well, thanks,” Allura smiled.

“Sure,” Red brushed a tangled lock of black hair out of her eyes. It was quiet for a minute.

“So, did Coran tell you about the sleepovers?” Allura asked.

“Uh, other than the one we’re on right now?” Red pulled her hair out of the pigtails they’d been trapped in all day.

“Yeah, uh, for in town games it’s sort of a tradition that someone hosts a sleepover. Usually me,” Allura explained, “I’m surprised Coran didn’t mention that. It’s one of his favorite team building exercises. Of course, you don’t have to go, but you do have to be invited.”

“Oh, I’m in,” Red smiled again, “totally. That sounds cool.”

“Well, we try,” Allura sighed, “I’m gonna go get this hair tie out by any means necessary, and get ready for bed while I’m at it. If it’s alright I take the first shower, that is.”

“Oh, I don’t care,” Red answered, grabbing her headphones off the bed. 

“Cool,” Allura paused, “I’m glad we got this sorted out. You seem like a pretty cool girl.”

“Thanks. You too.”

All and all, a successful first away game for Red. 

* * *

“You look like shit,” Red greeted Katie at the bus stop.

“Thanks,” Katie grumbled.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that in, like, a bad way,” Red backtracked.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of positive ways one can take that in,” Katie pointed out.

“Well, I don’t mean to be insulting but you look like you’ve been hit by a bus,” Red continued, “and I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I didn’t sleep,” Katie explained, “Plax was up until like four in the morning revising the plays for the next game. Light on, pen clicking so loudly and obnoxiously.”

“The extremely small amount of power that comes with being roller derby captain has gone to her head?” Red raised an eyebrow.

“Nah, she’s always been this intense,” Nyma explained, walking up to them, “she used to be my roommate. An eye mask and noise cancelling headphones are a must.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Katie yawned.

“So, first away game of the season,” Nyma continued, “how are you guys holding up so far?”

“My bones are disintegrating inside of my body,” Katie answered. Nyma laughed.

“Sounds about right. You get used to it,” Nyma lifted the corner of her shirt to reveal the most disgustingly intense bruise of all time, “didn’t even feel this thing.”

“Was that when you went crashing over the rail last night?” Katie cringed.

“Sure is,” Nyma beamed.

“Sick,” Red marveled.

“Thanks,” Nyma grabbed her suitcase.

“All aboard, we’ve got a long ride back into town, so if you have to use the bathroom, go back in time and use it ten minutes ago,” Coran laughed, earning a groan from all of the girls.

“Well, you heard the man. Yo Katie, are you alive in there?” Nyma waved a hand in front of her face. Katie sighed in response. Red nudged her forward until they were on the bus, at which point Katie completely collapsed in the seat and passed straight out.


	6. Great Googly Moogly it's all Gone to Shit

Katie was home alone pretty much all day. Which gave her plenty of time to stress out about what her parents were going to say. She was still racking her brain about it. She stared at the clock, knowing that her parents would be home at four-thirty. it was three fifty-nine now. She went over her mental to-do list again. She had cleaned the whole house, by herself. She called Plax and told her she wasn't gonna make it to pizza. She'd had to miss rehearsal. El wanted to know why, and Katie had faked being sick. She didn't want El to worry.

The clock had stopped. She was certain of it. It had frozen at three fifty-nine, and god knows how much time had passed since-oh. four o'clock. The clock hadn't stopped. Okay, good. Katie flopped over onto the couch. This was torture. She resolved to call Red, who was probably at home watching reruns of wipeout with Wendy. They loved that show. Katie didn't know what was wrong with them.

"Hello?" Red answered just before the phone went to voicemail. That was a habit Red had. She always said she was available to talk in emergencies, though Katie didn't know what emergency she would be useful for, given that her phone was usually across the apartment all day long. 

"My parents are gonna be home at four-thirty," Katie complained.

"Oh. Uh, okay?" Wendy shouted something behind Red as she answered, "Wendy says hi. Did you do something horrible and there's no time to clean it up?"

"No," Katie put her hand on her forehead, "remember how I said my parents were supposed to talk to me when I got back?"

"Oh, yeah, right. You're freaking out," Red said.

"I'm not freaking out!" Katie protested.

"You are. You're shrill. You got like that at tryouts too," Red pointed out, "now I'm gonna ask, what good do you think stressing about it is gonna do?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," Katie answered, "but that doesn't help. Anxiety is already irrational."

"Do you need me to talk to you until your parents get home?" Red asked, "Margherita!"

"That is not," Katie paused, "my name."

"Ordering pizza," Red explained, "Wendy asked what I want her to put on mine."

"How the fuck do you guys order so much pizza?" Katie asked.

"We get cheap-o trash pizza. We order the good stuff when you're here, usually, but trash pizza is our favorite. Five dollars for a pie and two for a drink. That's two meals for seven bucks. Cheaper than groceries sometimes, that trash pizza."

"There is no such thing as what you just said," Katie shook her head, "you guys know I love me some trash pizza. Especially with that jalapeno cheddar sauce you drown it in."

"Drowning it in jalapeno cheddar is the only way to enjoy it," Red agreed.

"Don't you need fancy shit for a Margherita pizza?" Katie asked.

"No, it's just basil and dried tomatoes on top," Red explained.

"Isn't that shit literally already in the pizza?"

"Extra quantities," she could hear Red open the fridge, "we're running low on sun-dried, Wen."

"You have sun-dried tomatoes but shit like eggs or flour are just beyond the fucking pale?" Katie asked.

"Hey look at me I'm Katie I can afford fancy shit like groceries and unlimited minutes," Red retorted. Katie paused.

"Did I hit a nerve?:" 

"You didn't mean to, it's fine," Red answered.

"I'm sorry anyway," Katie added.

"Thanks," Red grunted, "sorry for snapping. Anyway. Is there even such a thing as inedible pizza?"

"Chuck E Cheese," Katie answered.

"That's not my name," Red responded, and Katie laughed. She heard the sound of the garage door opening. That was fast.

"Sounds like someone's home," Katie observed.

"You need me to let you go?" 

"Not yet. We don't know who it is," Katie stared at the door. The door opened, and Katie slumped her shoulders.

"Who is it?" Red asked.

"Oh, it's just Matt," Katie said.

"Thanks," Matt said a little confused.

"Mom and dad are gonna be home soon. They need to talk to us about why they've been acting so goddamn weird lately," Katie explained.

"Have you slept?" Matt asked, "You do not look like you have slept."

"My roommate last night was...enthusiastic, to say the least," Katie explained, "oh and Red says hi."

"I did not!" Red protested from inside of Katie's phone. Red didn't really like Matt. Katie wasn't sure she understood why. Maybe it had to do with Matt being part of Katie's family, a group that made Red particularly tense.

"Oh, tell her I said hi back," Matt instructed, headed for the steps.

"Don't go hide. Mom and Dad need to talk to us," Katie said.

"I'm not going to go hide. I'm just gonna take a shower. Relax," Matt rolled his eyes as he climbed the steps.

"Anyway," Katie turned her attention back towards Red, "Chuck E Cheese pizza is just if la Croix was a pizza."

"I don't speak french," Red joked.

"Tu es con," Katie said.

"That means something totally different in Spanish," Red said, "at least, I'm assuming. Otherwise, you were just killed mid-sentence."

"Oh my god. I called you stupid," Katie pinched the bridge of her nose.

"You are with," Red mumbled, "if you want to call me stupid, do it in English."

"Well, that's mean if I tell you directly," Katie blinked.

"Sure, naturally," Red did not get this line of thinking at all.

"Oh, there's the garage again," Katie said.

"Okay. See you tomorrow."

"I hope so," Katie nodded.

"Oh my god you're dramatic," Katie could practically feel Red rolling her eyes through the phone.

"Yeah, okay. Later," Katie said. She heard Red echo her words faintly as she pulled her phone away to hang up. Her parents walked through the door.

"Hi," Katie squeaked.

"Hey, string bean! How was your trip?" Mr Holt asked, pulling her into a hug.

"It was good. We won," Katie answered.

"Good," Mrs Holt chimed in, cheerfully.

"So, what's going on?" Katie blurted.

"Jeez, Kate, we're not even through the door," Mr Holt shook his head, bemused.

"We're gonna have to tell her sooner or later, Sam," Mrs Holt pointed out, "we have to start soon."

"Start what?" Katie asked, "You guys are scaring me."

"Okay, okay, have a seat. Colleen, go get Matt," Mr Holt said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

She did, and Matt didn't look too pleased to have been dragged away from his computer. He was still in his work clothes. He sat down, grumpily, next to Katie.

"Okay," Mrs Holt took a deep, shaky breath, "do you want to or should I?"

"I think it might be better if I start," Mr Holt answered.

"I don't care who starts, I just want to make sure everything's okay," Katie chimed in.

"Okay," Mr Holt paused, "we're all fine. It's actually kind of exciting, for me and your mom, at least."

"Out with it!" Matt threw his hands up in the air.

"Right, well. You know, I've said for years that my job, well, I can't do it forever. I kept wishing for something to fall in my lap, and well, that's seldom how life works," Colleen started.

"My job has been the same. But as opposed to your mother, the universe did decide to answer me," Mr Holt grinned, "I was offered a job teaching microbiology at a top medical school," Mr Holt finally said.

"That's great!" Matt sat up in interest.

"Way to go, Dad," Katie agreed.

"But, well, the thing is," he cleared his throat, "the university is a little farther east."

"How much farther?" Katie asked.

"New York," Mr Holt answered sheepishly.

"What?" Katie shrieked. 

"If I play my cards right, I could get tenure. And I might be able to pull a few strings for my favorite pre-med students," Mr Holt winked at Katie.

"When?" Was all Matt could manage to say.

"I'm supposed to start next semester," he answered, "in the fall. But, well, there are things that needed to be taken care of, and one thing sort of led to another..."

"We fell in love with this beautiful house on Long Island, we just had to see it in person. So, we booked a tour," Mrs Holt grinned.

"When did..." Katie paused, "That weekend getaway you guys had right before tryouts?"

"Yes, dear," Mrs Holt nodded.

"The house was so beautiful and perfect for us. There were other couples looking at it, and we knew that it would be the one that got away if we didn't make an offer," Mr Holt continued, "We found out on our flight back home they had accepted the offer."

Katie tried to respond, tried to protest interject or really just say absolutely anything, but her jaw went slack. No sound.

"We close at the end of the month," Mrs Holt added, "and being that we can't afford two mortgages especially while your father is unemployed..."

"We're moving to Long Island at the end of the month," Matt finished.

"Well, that was the other thing," Mr Holt furrowed his brow, "the matter of you kids."

"Katie has school, and well, we'd really rather you finish this year here in California," Mr Holt added, "we'd like you both to join us in July. After your mother and I get settled, I mean."

"What?" Katie dug her nails into her thighs.

"So, the smiling?" Matt asked.

"We didn't want you guys to know before you needed to. I didn't want to stress you out," Mrs Holt explained.

"Counterintuitive," Matt furrowed his brow, "you being in pajamas all the time?"

"Well, I thought it would run a bit smoother if I quit my job right away. There's a lot of things I need to worry about in this move. I'm quitting anyway, and we can afford it. I shouldn't have to worry about looking like a model while I'm moving us across the country," Mrs Holt explained.

"I still don't get why you didn't tell us right away," Matt shook his head.

"Do you see how your sister is behaving right now?" Mrs Holt pointed out.

"We have three weeks," Katie mumbled, "three weeks to pack up and move away, and you thought me getting a little upset was worth postponing until I had other responsibilities to worry about?" Katie felt a lump in her throat building and her eyes stinging. But she wasn't sad. She was angry.

"String bean, we're sorry," Mr Holt tilted his head off to the side.

"I'm sorry too," Katie said, "I'm sorry that even though we're all adults in this house, we can't be bothered to talk about things like normal human beings."

"Kiddo, please," Mr Holt sighed, reaching for her shoulder, "don't be upset."

"I have a name, Dad," Katie flinched away, "use it."

She stood and walked towards the door. 

"Where are you going?" Mrs Holt asked, "We weren't done talking!"

"I'll be back. Late," Katie sighed, walking through the door. This whole thing was so un-Katie. Where the hell did all of that rage come from? Her hands were shaking as she opened the garage. Maybe she was overreacting. But regardless, she needed to get the hell out of here, fast. She opened her contacts. El answered on the first ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I TOLD YOU GUYS I'D BE BACK. sorry for delay, the past few days have been kicking my ass.  
It's a short one, but that's by design. I hope y'all like it!


	7. Decisions, Decisions

It wasn’t a long walk from the bus to El’s house. It wasn’t too convenient either, there were ten stops between them. Katie was gonna have to figure out how to drive. If she stayed here, that was. She pushed the button that said Ellie and Nyma on that weird intercom thingy indoor apartments had, what the hell were they called.

It was Nyma who buzzed her in. Katie thundered up the stairs because the elevator was out of order, of course it was, it wasn’t like Katie was already having a rough day, or anything.

“You look like hell,” Nyma answered the door without even greeting Katie, “did you fucking get hit by a bus or something?”

“Good to see you, too, Nyma,” Katie said, walking into the apartment.

“You’re lucky it didn’t start raining yet,” Nyma walked after Katie, “El went to get food for us. She should be back soon.”

“I didn’t know El could drive,” Katie leaned down to pet the cat.

“Well, she doesn’t have her own car. And I didn’t want to go,” Nyma answered.

“Who drives her to work?”

“I do. Duh,” Nyma rolled her eyes, “I’m getting something to drink. If you want anything, you have to pour a glass yourself.”

“You’re just gonna let me root around in your fridge?” Katie asked.

“I’m not hiding a dead body in there,” Nyma gave her a weird look and opened the fridge, “we have soda and coffee.”

“Okay,” Katie said, “thanks.”

“Whatever,” Nyma poured herself a glass of root beer and headed back to the living room. 

“So,” Katie sucked air in through her teeth, “how did you and El end up living together?”

“What do you mean?” Nyma asked.

“I mean, like, you two don’t seem to have a lot in common is all,” Katie said. She was panicking.

“She needed a place to stay. I happened to have a spare room. It’s really not complicated,” Nyma sighed, “but I could draw some kind of graph for you, if you’d like.”

“Okay,” Katie said again. She headed, at Nyma’s suggestion, into the kitchen for a drink. She noticed the fridge was decorated with photos. Most of them had Nyma in them, but the few that did not were photos of one man. She thought better than to ask. She poured herself a glass of soda and returned to the living room. She looked at Nyma.

“Um, can I help you?” Nyma raised an eyebrow.

“I just wanted to like,” she shrugged, “I dunno. This is your house.”

“It’s Ellie’s house, too,” Nyma pointed out.

“That doesn’t exactly help me here,” Katie looked at the floor.

“Why are you so weird and jumpy? What’s your problem?” Nyma asked, though she didn’t sound particularly interested in hearing the answer to that.

“I dunno!” Katie felt tense, “It’s just weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“That this is the first time I’ve been in Ellie’s house and it’s not even like, that I wanted to come over. It’s that I got in a big stupid fight with my parents. And she’s not even here!” 

“You need to chill the hell out, before your flailing takes out a lamp,” Nyma said, “and yeah, it is weird. What you have done here is extremely weird.”

The door opened and El stumbled through, arms full of pho.

“Hey!” she greeted brightly.

“Ellie, your girlfriend is here and she’s being fucking weird,” Nyma announced.

“I can see that,” El set down her food and hugged Katie, “what’s going on? You sounded pretty frazzled on the phone.”

“I had a fight with my parents,” Katie explained, though she had already said that part on the phone.

“Yeah, I know. What about?” El asked.

“They’re moving to New York,” Katie answered

“Oh,” El paused, “are you going with them?”

“I mean,” Katie considered this, “I kind of have to, right?”

“Oh my god,” Nyma chimed in from the couch. El shot her a glare.

“You do not literally have to,” El said, “you’re an adult, Katie, you can be in charge of your own life.”

“But it’s like here’s the people who have loved me longer than anyone else and I’ve known them literally as long as I’ve been alive and I don’t even know how to function without them and they’re moving across the country,” Katie said, twirling knots into one of her longer curls.

“Why are they moving?” El asked.

“Dad got a teaching job.”

“Ah,” El locked eyes with her, “when?”

“End of the month,” Katie answered, “but they want us to join them in July.”

“Oh,” El was silent.

“They’ve known, too, for a while,” Katie continued, “they knew that they were moving and they just sat on that information for god knows how long. They probably wouldn’t have even told me if I hadn’t noticed them acting weird.”

“Weirder than this?” Nyma asked.

“Nyma!” El scolded.

“I’m curious!” Nyma innocently shrugged, but went back to staring at her drink regardless. 

“Sorry for like, coming over here I’m just so mad I couldn’t stick around at home and normally I would call Red but I have no idea what she does with her phone on weekends I swear to god she chucks it into the fucking void. I’ve gotten to answer her goddamn phone like twice in recent memory. Anyway, I needed to go somewhere and I obviously can’t just get on the bus with no obvious destination but I wasn’t gonna call Leandro or Hunk because they have shit to do and-”

“No offense dude but what the hell are you talking about?” Nyma asked.

“It’s fine,” El assured her.

"Are you sure?" Katie asked. 

"Of course. Stay as long as you'd like!" El beamed.

"Uh, hi, excuse me," Nyma interjected.

"Right, yeah," El rolled her eyes, "Nyma, do you mind if she stays here?"

"Would it matter if I did?" Nyma retorted.

"You're the best," El answered.

"How long do you think that you're gonna be staying here?" El asked.

"Oh, I dunno. I mean, I could call Wendy, but I know she takes night classes on Saturdays," Katie looked quizzically at her phone, "so tomorrow I can call Wendy. I'd feel bad just showing up. I guess I could just go back home-"

"No, no. You seem pretty pissed. If you go back home now, you're just gonna say awful things you probably don't mean," Nyma pointed out.

"Well, Nyma would know," El agreed, "you can stay here tonight."

"Our couch folds out," Nyma said, "and I'll be at work all day tomorrow so I guess it would be pretty stupid for me to oppose you being here."

"You guys are sure?" Katie asked.

"It's not too late to call someone else," Nyma said, "but if you want to, you can stay."

"Nyma's hospitality leaves something to be desired. But she's right," El agreed.

"You guys are the best," she pulled El into a hug, and smiled over at Nyma.

"I don't hug," Nyma waved a hand, "but you're welcome. Anyway, El, food."

"Oh, right, food," El picked up the bags carefully, "I didn't know if you had any dietary restrictions or anything, but Nyma and I are vegetarians. So, tofu."

"Tofu is good," Katie smiled as she took the bag from El, "thanks for getting food. You totally totally did not have to do that."

"Oh, it's not because you're a guest. El food shops on Saturday mornings but away games fuck with that," El shot Nyma another glare, so Nyma added, "I mean, because you're here too."

"You guys want to watch a movie?" El asked.

"Sure!" Katie said, a little too forcibly excited.

"Yeah, let's show Katie one of our trashfires," Nyma chimed in about as enthusiastically as Nyma got where her girlfriend wasn't concerned.

"We're not showing a trashfire," El said.

"A what?" Katie asked, a little worried that it was going to be exactly what it sounded like.

"A trashfire is when we comb through the teen movies on Netflix and pick the worst sounding movie to rip on," El explained, "we're not doing it. We have company and we're going to behave like human beings."

"You have never behaved like a human being for even a second that I've known you," Nyma pointed out, "if your girlfriend can't take you being weird..."

"I love bad movies!" Katie nearly shouted, "I mean, yeah. That's cool. Thaaaaat's cool."

"They put new york minute back on here. We should definitely make her watch that," Nyma suggested.

"Oh god, I haven't seen that movie in so long," El looked like she was ready to burst into flames at the suggestion of exposing her girlfriend to such unquantifiable amounts of trash. Luckily for her, Katie was too busy burning the taste buds out of her mouth with pho to even process the change in facial expression.

"We're definitely watching that," Nyma said, already pressing play without consulting El, Katie or even the cat.

"I guess we're really doing this," El furrowed her brow.

"I guess we really are," Katie nodded, "but won't the pho get cold?"

"Eat on the couch," Nyma suggested.

"Oh, we don't do that at my house," Katie said.

"Well, we do it here," Nyma said with a snort.

"Okay," Katie shrugged, grabbed her stuff, and sat down. 

Heckling the movie turned out to be very fun. Nyma's dry wit was the perfect match for El's sarcasm. The movie itself was bad. It was very bad. It was, like, so so bad. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. The dorkiest piece of trash Katie had ever laid her eyes on. But it was fun to watch, especially with El there. They watched a second bad movie afterward, though she wasn't sure this one quite counted. There wasn't a lot of heckling. Katie suspected that it was secretly one that they liked.

After that, though, El was practically falling asleep sitting up, so she brought Katie every spare blanket in the house and a toothbrush she had picked up right after the pho. Nyma was still awake for a little while after, but she didn't really talk. She just sat there, reading her book and at one point, she went to her room to call Shay and she just...never came back out.

Katie, figuring her parents had at least had enough torture to warrant one text, sent them the words "I'm okay. I'll swing by tomorrow to grab some stuff. I need to clear my head for a few days." She figured with as overbearing as her parents were, she was as good as dead as soon as she crossed paths with one of them. But for right now, she was kind of enjoying feeling like an adult. Being on her own. She had no idea what she was gonna do. It was scary. El's words stuck out in her brain as she tried to think about anything but her parents. 

She did not, technically, have to go. How could she not, though? She felt so lost making a decision this big for herself. She'd never felt this in charge of her own life and spiraling out of control at the same time. Her mother texted her back. "Call immediately after you get this," showed up in a notification. But she figured she had earned herself some leniency in how quickly she needed to get back to her mother, so she turned her phone off and went to bed instead.

* * *

Shortly after she woke up, Nyma came out of her room and asked Katie how she slept on that shitty futon that she should have replaced by now and Katie came to the conclusion that it wasn't that Nyma didn't care, it was just that she didn't know how to properly be nice to other humans. She supposed that was valid, in a way.

Nyma headed off to work to her shitty unbelievably shitty in her own words job and Katie was alone again, slightly regretting not having asked how to put a movie on their TV. She made herself a bowl of cereal that Nyma told her to help herself to if she got hungry, no milk, as they were out, and scrolled through her phone. She figured she'd text Wendy to yell at Red to call her.

"Hey," El greeted with a yawn.

"Hey," Katie said.

"I have to go grocery shopping," El said, "if you want to come."

"Well...sure," Katie looked at her phone. No word from Leandro, Hunk, or Wendy. Where the hell was everybody this morning?

"You need clean clothes," El observed, "I should get you something to wear."

El was acutely aware of how much she was talking like a robot. She was panicking. She'd never had a girl over, well, ever, much less when her house was almost completely empty of food. She brought back some clothes that were definitely not Katie's style but would do, and after a shower, they headed off.

"As mentioned, I don't have a car," El said as she locked the door, "but it's fine. There's a store next door."

"Off to an encouraging start," Katie adjusted her glasses. El and Nyma's apartment building was on a busy street downtown.

"I want to save up," El said, "you know. Get a car. But Nyma said after she gets a bike, she might pawn off her hunk of junk onto me. Her words, not mine. She is so weird about doing nice things. It's like she wants to trick you into thinking she's being an asshole still. That way she doesn't have to deal with the fact she did something nice."

"Yeah, I picked up on that. How she got Shay to go out with her is a mystery," Katie agreed as she started down the stairs.

"Nyma has always had a soft spot for Shay. Everyone else gets to deal with her stage four bitch disorder," El explained, "oh, well, I mean, except for Rolo. She's nice to Rolo too."

"Is Rolo the guy in the pictures?" Katie asked.

"Yeah, I don't know why I said that as if you knew what I was talking about," El chuckled nervously.

"Who is he? I mean, if that's not top-secret information," Katie pushed open the door at the bottom of the staircase, thanking god that they only lived on the second floor up.

"Well, he was Nyma's foster brother," El explained, "We all knew him. For a while, I mean. They were pretty joined at the hip. They even lived together. But one day out of nowhere, she just stopped bringing him around. I haven't even heard her talk about him since it happened. But he moved out. That's how I ended up living with her. She clams up when anyone brings him up, so uh-"

"Don't bring him up," Katie nodded, "got it."

"I have no idea what my problem is telling you that just now. I overshare when I get nervous," El continued.

"Why are you nervous?" Katie asked.

"This whole situation is so weird is why!" El answered, perhaps a little louder than she needed to be while opening the door to the lobby, "Sorry. I mean like, you're great. I'm glad you came over this is just. I mean."

"It's a lot," Katie agreed.

"Exactly. We've only been going out for a couple of weeks and suddenly you're in my house and Nyma won't stop calling you my girlfriend-"

"Are we not girlfriends?" Katie asked, suddenly very nervous.

"No. I mean, yes. Double negatives. We are girlfriends. But now we're grocery shopping together and you might be looking for a new place to live soon and it's like...it feels like this is like..."

"It's a train going off the rails," Katie agreed. 

"And this is fun! I don't know what my deal is. I'm having fun with you here. But my heart keeps racing and I feel like I'm gonna faint and I think the real reason that people wait until they've known each other for like years before they move in together is right now I feel like I need to go to the hospital and you haven't even been here for one whole day," she finally paused for a breath, "please don't hate me or think I hate you because I said that. Because I don't. I really don't."

"It's okay, El. I kind of feel that way too," Katie confessed, "it's very sweet of you to tell me I can stay however long I need to, but it really like...I'd rather be figuring this out at Red's because that's familiar. If she ever wants to answer her damn phone."

"We should do this again, though. This whole thing. Maybe like," El paused, "coming over to my apartment and watching trash movies with my bitchy roommate is like. Maybe a month and a half marker?"

"It's a date," Katie smiled, "but for now, I think I'm gonna go back upstairs and like. Not make you anxiety shop. I've seen Wendy do it before exams. It's not pretty." 

"Right. Good idea," El stared grudgingly at the stairs, "I wish we had this conversation before we walked all the way down the stairs."

"Good exercise. Plax would be proud."

"That she would."

* * *

It wasn't long before Red finally, finally called.

"Dude, what the hell?" was how Red spoke when she answered the phone.

"What?" Katie asked.

"I have like, ten missed calls from your mom, the most anxiety inducing human being of all time," Red explained.

"Was that before or after you sent your phone on a fucking expedition?" Katie asked.

"What are you...nevermind. It's not important. Wendy woke me up to tell me to call you. I want to know what the hell is going on right now," Red demanded.

"Well, it's kind of a long story. You know that thing that my parents have been acting really weird about?" Katie asked.

"More than usual? I'm fucking familiar," Red answered, "what happened?"

"Dad got a teaching job in New York. They close on a house at the end of the month," Katie explained.

"How long," Red exhaled, "have they been just sitting on that fucking information?"

"At least a couple of weeks. Maybe a month," Katie stared out the window.

"Are you going with them?" Red asked.

"I don't know!" Katie huffed, "I don't know. I don't know. I have never been more confused in my fucking life!"

"Well, your mom seems to be freaking the fuck out. You just walked out?"

"I just walked out," Katie repeated.

"Wow. Go Katie."

"No, not go Katie. I repeat, not go Katie! I am dead where I fucking stand as soon as I get home, I don't know where I'm going to be living at the end of the month, I'm probably gonna get an earful from Leandro as soon as he catches wind of the situation-"

"Wait, you're not here, you're not at home, you're not at Leandro's. Where the hell are you?"

"I'm," Katie became acutely aware, for like the fiftieth time, that this was the weirdest situation she could possibly find herself in, "at El's."

"Excuse me?" Red asked, practically voicing her facepalm.

"I had to get out of there."

"Yeah, no question about that, but why the fuck-"

"You never answer your phone. Never. It's fucking infuriating. Wendy was in class. Leandro and Hunk just barely live together and I didn't want to go stay with them when they don't even know where their forks are. So I...panicked."

"It didn't occur to you that you could just show up?" Red asked, "At my place, I mean."

"Normal people don't show up uninvited."

"Right, yeah, normal people do whatever this is."

There was silence.

"Can I stay the night tonight? Maybe a few nights?" Katie asked, "I know I'm being childish and stupid here, but I really am just super furious-"

"Yes! Jesus christ, Katie. Yes. Please come over," Red said.

"Okay. When El gets back from grocery shopping, I'll figure out the bus schedule on this side of town," Katie said, "and I'll be over as soon as I can."

"You don't want me to pick you up? My bike is back from the shop."

"No, I'm good," Katie said, "I think I need to be by myself on a bus."

"Your mental state can't be good when you're saying shit like that," Red sighed, "okay. Call me when you're on the way."

"Okay," Katie said, and then she hung up.

Nyma came home from her break and heated herself some leftovers. She heated some for Katie too, stating that she had grabbed the wrong leftovers by mistake, even though Katie's had a clearly marked 'K' on the lid. Nyma was possibly the nicest asshole that Katie had ever met in her life.

When El got back from the grocery store, Katie changed back into her now clean clothes from the day before, thanked El for letting her stay, and left.

* * *

"Are you guys sure this is okay?" Katie asked as Wendy placed two of the thickest blankets in the apartment on the couch.

"The very fact you would ask is insulting," Wendy said, placing a hand on Katie's shoulder, "are you doing okay?" 

"Yeah, I mean, okay enough," Katie shrugged, "I have to deal with making the biggest decision of my life. I have nowhere to live. I don't know anyone with a spare room."

"You could always stay here?" Wendy suggested.

"This isn't even a two-bedroom apartment," Katie pointed out, "I don't want to crowd you guys."

"Not permanently," Wendy clarified, "but I mean until you get something else worked out?"

"That could take months," Katie groaned. Wendy rolled her eyes.

"Anything you have in your head about being a burden is just that. All in your head. And if Red heard that, with the way she grew up, she would kick your ass."

"I know," Katie sighed, "I know. Thanks."

"Of course," Wendy smiled.

"I just got off the phone with Leandro," Red said, stepping through the window, "your mom keeps calling him too. Your mom has transformed your friend group into a goddamn search party."

"Jesus," Katie rolled her eyes, "I just called her like, what, an hour ago?"

"An hour too much, evidently," Red tossed her phone on the couch, "if you didn't have so much of your shit at this place, you'd be absolutely fucked right now."

"That I would," Katie agreed.

"How long do you think you're gonna go without going home?" Wendy asked, "like, I mean, you don't even have your laptop here, and you're a pre-med with a minor in robotics. I imagine you're not gonna be able to do your homework without your computer. And not to be rude, but like, I literally cannot spare a second of my computer's time."

"I understand," Katie said, "I'm not going to class this week. There's just absolutely no way. I would cancel the match if I could. And, oh god, we have to go to Allura's too, don't we?"

"We don't have to. I'm sure that the girls would be cool with it if you explained-"

"No," Katie interrupted, "I don't want anyone else on the team knowing what's going on in my life. Leandro's already lectured me about how my life is my life and I shouldn't let my parents yada yada blah blah blah."

"He's right, you know," Wendy said.

"Do you think that's helpful?" Katie asked through gritted teeth.

"Nope, sorry," Wendy tried her best to avoid eye contact.

"Anyway, I'll stay over here. Then I'll do the match on Friday, the sleepover too, and I guess Leandro and Hunk's talent showcase is this weekend too, huh? I'll go home on Sunday."

She was as much settling it to herself as she was Wendy and Red. But, at least for right now, she had some hint of a plan.

* * *

The match was, surprisingly, a highlight of Katie's hot mess of a week. Maybe the frustration from everything was finally getting to her. Which, fortunately enough, was useful for contact sports. She moved quickly through the crowd, scoring points left and right. The match wasn't even close. The sapphic she-devils scored a dozen more points than the other team, which was a record for them.

"Way to go, Kate!" Plax clapped a hand on her back.

"Thanks!" Katie beamed.

"You've found your aggression. That's good. use that," Plax instructed her, "if you keep that energy throughout the season, we'll definitely make the championship."

"You're talking like a feelgood sports movie again," Nyma put an arm around Plax's shoulder, "alright bitches. It's time."

"I suppose it is," Allura sighed, "anyone that needs a ride to my place, Nyma's car fits eight. I would offer, but, well..."

"It would be pretty hard to fit all of us on a motorcycle," Shay finished. 

"Precisely. I've texted the team groupchat the address though. So if you need to, you can use your GPS," Allura added brightly. Katie considered her options and for once, riding with Red sounded about the least terrifying. At least she wouldn't have to talk to anybody. 

* * *

"Holy fuck, you live here?" Katie asked as they exited the elevator.

"Yes," Allura said.

"You live...here?" Katie said again.

"Yes," Allura raised an eyebrow as she tossed down her helmet.

"You live here, in this beautiful penthouse?" Katie was staring at her apartment gaping like a fish, "This isn't like, the wrong address or a dream of some kind?"

"That is correct," Allura laughed.

"How fucking popular is the rec center?" Katie demanded, jaw still slack.

"It was much more popular before I was born, I'm afraid," Allura explained, "my parents did fairly well for themselves. They gave most of what they earned to charity, or so it was explained to me."

"Jesus fucking christ," Katie said.

"She means that it's beautiful," Red said.

"Thank you very much," Allura said, "people are usually a little surprised when they find out this is where I live."

"This whole place is all yours?" Katie asked.

"I mean, yes..." Allura was starting to look like she would rather be somewhere else.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive," Katie was starting to panic. 

"It's cool," Allura assured her, "so, anyway, this is the general sleepover area."

She gestured towards the living room. There was an assortment of fluffy chairs, beanbags, and those inflatable plastic chairs lining the round shag rug in the middle of the foyer. 

"I took the popcorn machine from the home theater and I'm making Shirley temples as soon as the others get here. We're gonna watch a movie, make tie-dye shirts and make pizza," Allura stared down the living room set up like it was going to move.

"Wow, you guys don't fuck around with sleepovers," Red marveled.

"Yeah, that sounds pretty awesome," Katie agreed.

"We really, really don't," Allura shook her head. The buzzer beeped at them. Ah, speak of the devil. Party time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meep morp.


	8. There Will Be no Sleep in the Land of Slumber

"Okay everyone, here's what I've got planned tonight," Allura cleared her throat, taking out a comically large piece of paper.

"She and Plax have been in constant competition to throw the best slumber parties for as long as I've known them. They keep escalating. It's insane," El whispered.

"We're going to start off fairly standard, I ordered six pizzas, two cheese, two pepperoni, and two veggie lovers. We're also going to be doing facials and making tee shirts and of course, there's going to be manicures and a scary movie and special popcorn-"

"Wow, that is a lot of stuff," Katie said.

"Oh, wait until she gets going," Nyma opened a bag of chips. that she appeared to have brought from home.

"We're going to be making cookies from scratch and obviously makeovers and we're painting our nails-"

"Sounds like literally my worst nightmare," Katie whispered. El giggled. 

Allura listed off many many more activities, some of which sounded fun, and others sounded like forms of torture. Luckily for Katie, since it was just a bunch of lesbians, the makeovers didn't usually involve actual makeup but rather a series of ridiculous accessories. Not one girl in the entire penthouse had an eyelash curler nor did they seem to have seen one up close. 

Finally, they began the teen girl bonding rituals, starting with nails. Red painted hers black, ironically, and Katie painted hers the darkest green Allura had in her arsenal. Allura had more colors than Katie even knew existed. She thought maybe that when you became an art student, you unlocked secret colors. Red probably had, like, shrimp vision, she thought as she carefully applied a second coat.

They then began the movie. They watched Silence of the Lambs because it was a classic and Allura had never seen it before. But someone told Nyma what the autopsy people find in those corpses and she almost threw it up. Anyway, they turned it off and put on Scream instead. Scream was a classic. It didn't even matter that certain guests had seen it quote sixty fucking times or that El really was not a fan of horror movies and had to leave and ironically Blair witch in the corner listening to tunes.

Red was definitely having fun even though she was nervous that she was going to say or do something weird because that was usually exactly what she did. It wasn't like her to be nervous. But all this team stuff was happening so fast and Red was still getting used to everybody. But other than that, it was fun. The pizza was good and so was the popcorn. Allura didn't even have time to check her phone between activities. But when she did, she realized that Coran had called her like four times.

"Ugh, I had better call Coran back," Allura rolled her eyes even though she was secretly happy to have Coran looking out for her.

"Everybody having fun?" Nyma asked, sounding as purposefully aloof as she could muster.

"I mean, I was having fun when it looked like you were going to hurl," El shrugged.

"Where's the bathroom?" Red asked, "I gotta go before Allura gets us caught up in another two-hour long activity." 

"I mean, it's midnight. How many more activities could she possibly have planned?" Katie asked. El and Shay exchanged glances.

"Did you guys get a nap before the sleepover?" Shay furrowed her brow in concern.

"No?" Katie began to feel the Jaws theme growing louder and louder in her head.

"Oh boy," Plax chimed in, "you are gonna be fine. Just maybe tomorrow morning which is really more like tomorrow afternoon when she releases us all into the wild, just maybe go home and go just directly to bed."

"Oh god," Red's eyes went wide, "Katie. Katie, we have the talent show tomorrow at four."

"We're going to die either by sleep deprivation or Leandro and Hunk are going to kill us themselves for sleeping through their performances," Katie said.

"Don't panic," Shay instructed, "Nyma?"

"Fine," Nyma sighed, "I carry six energy drinks in my backpack at all times. You may have four of them."

"Why do you have..." Katie trailed off, "nevermind. Thanks."

"Speaking of drinks," Red redirected attention back to her initial issue.

"It's upstairs," Nyma said, and did not elaborate before changing the subject to Courtney Cox. Red decided to bravely venture upstairs anyway.

She managed to find the, or at least, a, bathroom, one of those ones that was part of a master but had a door to the outside hallway in case one was in the midst of taking a shit when their house caught fire.

The door to the bathroom from the bedroom was ajar, but the hallway doors were both shut and it was kind of an emergency, so Red didn't have time to go around shutting ninety-eight doors. She was washing her hands when Allura walked into her room.

"Sorry!" Red was so startled that she fell completely back into the shower. She managed to catch herself before it got real bad.

"Holy shit, are you okay?" Allura asked, coming into the bathroom.

"I'm good," Red sprung back up, "I'm good."

"We have got to stop meeting like this," Allura suppressed a giggle.

"Is this your room?" Red asked.

"Well, it sure is," Allura pushed back her urge to be sarcastic.

"It's pretty," Red took a step back as if the bedroom was going to swallow her.

"Do you want to see it?" Allura asked, "I mean, besides Katie, you're the only one who hasn't had the full tour."

"Uh, sure," Red shrugged. The first thing that Red noticed was that the room was a lot darker than Red would have pictured. Walls painted cranberry against light pink trim with completely black sheets and pillowcases. The second thing was a large collage of photographs.

"Is that me?" Red asked, approaching, "oh my god, it is."

"Yeah, that photograph Coran took, I decided to have it printed."

"It's nice," Red smiled. Her eyes scanned the rest of the collage, a lot of pictures of people she knew, and some pictures of people she didn't. Her eyes fell on one particular photograph with a grayscale and the grain of newsprint. It seemed to be of Allura, only with a different jawline and a slightly looser hair texture. She was skating.

"That's my mom," Allura noticed Red staring at the photograph.

"She's so...graceful," Red was in her head trying to come up with something good to say for nearly a full minute and that was the best she could do?

"She really was," Allura smiled. It was a sore subject, clearly.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to, uh-"

"It's okay, really," Allura assured her, "she won a lot of regional competitions. I saved these because Dad could never get a good shot of her. But this was when...she was just so happy out on the ice."

"You seemed pretty happy, too," Red blurted out. She instantly regretted it, "sorry. I know you're kind of cagey about that."

"I am," Allura agreed.

"If you don't mind my asking, why don't you want the others to know?" Red asked, "I mean, especially when the evidence is literally printed on your wall."

"I don't mind your asking," Allura said, "she taught me to skate when I was four years old. Then it was just...our thing. We weren't as close as me and my dad. But we had that."

"Oh," Red nodded.

"When my parents passed away, I broke my leg. It sort of felt, you know, like a sign. And it took a very long time, a lot of roller derby, to build up those muscles again. And once I started skating again...I felt closer to her. That must sound so ridiculous," Allura sat down on her bed.

"It doesn't," Red sat down next to her.

Allura didn't answer. 

"On Superbowl Sunday, I get out the tape from my dad's favorite Superbowl, and I watch it, all by myself, and I try to repeat as much of his commentary as I can remember," Red said, "I don't even like football. Now that is ridiculous."

"It's sweet, I think," Allura smiled.

"Yeah, well, your thing is, too," Red smiled back, "there's probably incorrect ways to deal with the loss of a parent, but I don't think your thing is an example."

"Hm."

"I'm sorry. I suck at this comforting thing."

"You're actually doing better than you think," Allura said, "or better than most people. So, thanks."

"No problem," Red locked eyes with her. 

Nyma burst in at that very moment.

"Yo, we're about to watch a shitty teen movie. Let's go!" she said, "Oh, hey, Red. We were beginning to suspect you have a stomach parasite."

"Coming," Allura waved her off.

"Well, it's been nice talking to you," Red sheepishly said, standing up, "I know that sounds fake, like completely Narnia levels of fictitious, but it has."

"It has been nice," Allura agreed, "very nice."

* * *

The rest of the sleepover was completely fine, and fun even, but as promised, Red and Katie felt like total zombies by the time they got to the talent showcase.

"Hey guys!" Leandro greeted.

"Why are you so damn chipper?" Katie groaned.

"I dunno, why do the two of you look like you got hit by a goddamn bus on your way over here?" Hunk asked.

"One day we really are going to be hit by a bus on our way over here, and you will be very, very sorry," Red chimed in.

"Right, well," Leandro clicked his tongue, "we're on next. I hope you guys don't literally die in the process of watching us."

"No promises," Red spoke in a teasing singsong voice.

Their performance was a completely different song than they had been rehearsing, but Leandro and Hunk had such onstage chemistry, you couldn't even tell. Leandro wore his nails hot pink and black dress pants, matching suspenders with a blue button-down. Hunk was matching, except for, of course, the shirt being light yellow.

"Don't go breaking my heart," Leandro sang.

"I couldn't if I tried," Hunk twirled him around. 

Their routine was, actually, really fun to watch. Who knew that Leandro and Hunk could dance like that. Eat your heart out, that long line of ladies that do the can-can.

The crowd cheered, including Red and Katie, who were miraculously still alive and furthermore awake.

"You guys killed it!" Katie grinned.

"Thanks. Now, go home. Go immediately and directly to bed," Leandro commanded.

"We'll tell you how it ends," Hunk chimed in.

"Cool, thanks," Red yawned. She was already on her way back to the motorcycle before they could say 'Elton John'.

* * *

When Katie walked through the front door to see her mother sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for her. Mrs Holt silently walked over to her and squeezed her, tight.

"You didn't call," Colleen scolded mid-hug.

"I texted you to tell you I was alright," Katie pointed out, "I'm an adult."

"You still live under my roof," Colleen retorted.

"Not for long, I don't," Katie snorted.

"Bad choice of words," Colleen pinched the bridge of her nose, "Katie, I need you to understand that your father and I aren't doing this to spite or hurt you."

"I know that," Katie mumbled.

"Do you?"

"Okay, well, let's just say that I shouldn't have run off, and you and dad should have told me about everything, and we both have plenty reason to be miffed at each other."

"That I can agree with," Colleen nodded, slowly.

"But I can't have the big long conversation right now because I woke up at ten yesterday and I haven't slept since. So, if you'll excuse me..."

"What? Why not?"

"Sleepovers," Katie yawned, "teenage girls are a menace."

"Funny, coming from you," Colleen pointed out.

"Mom, that's the joke."

"Oh," Colleen laughed, "yes. Very funny. Go get some rest."

"Sure," Katie mumbled, "mom?"

"Hm?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

They were both too busy for most of the week to have the long conversation that Colleen was promised by her daughter. That was, until the next Saturday night, when Katie got home from her away game.


	9. Totally Normal Conversations

Katie thanked Red for her ride home as she walked through the front door of the house. She could hear her mother making coffee in the kitchen.

"Katie, is that you?" she asked.

"Yeah, mom," Katie replied.

"Would you come here? I want to talk to you," Colleen spoke with sort of a softness that wasn't there before.

"Sure," Katie shrugged off her backpack and tossed her skates aside. The lights in the kitchen were turned all the way up, which was a good sign. Usually, if Colleen was having a migraine, she would mess with the dimmer switch until one could barely tell the lights were on at all. Katie wondered if the new house was going to have a dimmer switch. Ugh. The new house.

"How was your game?" Colleen asked.

"It was good," Katie reached into the fridge for a soda. Normally she wouldn't leave something like that unattended but Matt was spending a couple nights at his friend's, "we won."

"Good," Colleen poured herself a drink. The tension was palpable, and Katie hated it.

"I'm sorry for running off," Katie blurted out.

"Oh?" Colleen was taken aback, "I actually...it's funny. I was going to apologize to you."

"What?" Katie opened her soda, and the fizz sprayed all over her uniform, "Jesus!"

"Well," Colleen made a beeline for the paper towels, "I thought that we, your father and I, that is, were wrong to treat you like a little kid. Your feelings don't deserve to be smashed out like that."

"Okay," Katie said.

"Of course, the way that you reacted put you into the role of the rebellious teenager," Colleen continued.

"I am a teenager, Mom," Katie pointed out.

"You know what I mean, though," Colleen wet the paper towels under the sink and handed them to Katie, "we were worried sick about you, you know."

"I can take care of myself," Katie protested, "I can do karate."

"Honey, you never made it past a green belt," Colleen said.

"Green is my color," Katie blinked.

"Katie," she sighed.

"I know, I know. I did apologize for running off," Katie said.

"And I'm apologizing now for making you feel like you had to run off in the first place," Colleen leaned against the counter in an effort to look more relaxed than it really was.

"Cool. Back to square one next week, I'm sure," Katie took a sip of her drink. The can was sticky.

"Katie, can I ask you something?" Colleen asked.

"Sure, mom," Katie shrugged.

"Do you even want to go to New York?"

Katie stopped. This was the first time or at least the first time she could remember at the moment that Colleen went out of her way to ask what Katie wanted. To be fair, Katie often provided her opinion unsolicited and out of the blue, so there really wasn't a need. There was this time, she guessed.

"Not really," Katie confessed.

"I see," Colleen nodded.

"Mom, I want you to understand that I love you, and I would never want to hurt your feelings or make you upset," Katie drummed her fingers on the table, "but, you know, I can't live with you forever."

"Well, I knew that. I just didn't know that when you moved out you would be across the country from me," she sighed.

"I could go. Say the word and I will go. You're my family," she refused eye contact.

"But you have a new family too."

"That I do. I keep stumbling into those. It's very dangerous for a girl like me to ride the city bus and accidentally fall straight into a handful of lifelong friendships."

"Katie," Colleen shook her head, but she was smiling. And then her smile went away, "I want you to stay here."

"You do?" Katie's spine tensed.

"When I moved out of your grandparents' house, I went to college straight away. I was going to be a doctor in Denver, did you know that?"

"Why Denver?" Katie raised an eyebrow.

"It's cold there. I remember I wanted to see snow in the winter."

"That's everyone's least favorite part of winter, I've heard."

"Not me. My least favorite was Christmas," Colleen explained.

"That's called having taste," Katie said, and her mother laughed. 

"So I went to Denver, and I started my degree. And I called your grandparents almost every day, and when I didn't, they called me. I learned how to scrape ice off of my windshield and how to survive a blizzard on limited supplies and I had a backup generator. And I missed my parents very much but I liked being on my own and taking care of myself. I thought for a very long time that I wasn't going to come back."

"So what changed?" Katie asked.

"I came home for summer break my senior year of college and I reunited with this funny little nerd I went to high school with."

"And then you fell in love?" Katie guessed.

"That's about right. But I wasn't going to give up my dreams for some guy. So in the fall, I broke up with him and went to go finish college and he said that if he ever found himself in Denver, he was going to look me up. With my permission, of course. And do you know what I learned while I was finishing my four-year degree?"

"What?"

"I learned that I hate Denver. I hate Denver so much. So I went to med school and did my residency here," Colleen explained, "but I never regretted going to Denver. Not for one second. I needed that opportunity to be by myself and evolve by myself in a city where none of my family lived so that I didn't have to spend the rest of my life wondering. Do you see what I'm saying?"

"I think so," Katie nodded.

"I'm gonna miss you," Colleen put a hand on her daughter's face.

"I'm gonna miss you, too," Katie pulled her into a hug.

"Get a deadbolt, wherever you live," Colleen lectured, "and don't keep your freezer stocked with just ice cream. I don't want you destroying your stomach."

"I know, ma," Katie tried to sound annoyed, but she couldn't manage to do it. To Katie, her mom was the most strange and perplexing person alive. But she had her moments.

____________________________________________ 

Red was trying very hard not to notice Allura avoiding her. She'd managed to go a full week without making it into a thing. Since when did Red care about things like this? Since never, really. But Allura, man. There was something about her.

Red managed to make it all the way until the Monday after the away game to say something, not out of fear or of awkward politeness, but because Red well knew what it was like to be trying to avoid someone and they just wouldn't leave her alone. She caught Allura standing in front of her locker, lacing up her skates.

"Hey," Red greeted, leaning against Nyma's locker.

"Oh!" Allura seemed to be a little startled. She quickly regained her composure, "Red!"

"That's what they call me," Red toyed with the charm on her necklace. Shiro had given it to her. She'd broken three jump rings already not being able to resist messing with it.

"Is there something that you wanted?" Allura asked.

"Well," Red suddenly found herself unsure of what to say, "actually, I was going to invite you to the sleepover this weekend."

"The sleepover?" Allura repeated. 

"Yeah, uh," Red sighed, "Plax said it's my turn to host."

"Your first sleepover. Are you looking forward to it?" Allura asked.

"Actually, I plan on jumping off a bridge just before," Red explained.

"Well, I'll be there, sure," Allura looked down, "I know inviting me is just a formality and that Plax would throw a complete tantrum if I wasn't there, now that Katie is skipping."

"Woah, wait," Red stepped towards her, "Katie is skipping?"

"You didn't know?" Allura looked genuinely surprised, "I thought...you know, being her best friend and all."

"I'm not really," Red waved a hand, "I mean...Shiro is kind of... and I mean, even he sometimes, I mean he's older and everything...point is, I just hang out with Katie the most because she's there."

"Oh?"

"Well. That came out wrong. What I meant to say was Katie's best friends are Leandro and Hunk. Anyway, that's not important right now. When did you find out about Katie?"

"Right before you got here, Plax had a meltdown so bad about Katie saying she was gonna miss a few practices. Plax threw up. It was not pretty," Allura scrunched her nose, "she promised to make the games, though. I found out because Plax is the loudest person ever."

"Rivaled possibly by a jet engine," Red sighed, "well, that's cool. My first sleepover and Katie's not even gonna be there and Wendy is gonna be at her boyfriend's."

"Red, are you okay? You look like steam is gonna come out of your ears," Allura raised an eyebrow.

"I'm good," Red lied, "I'm definitely going to kick Katie's ass. But other than that. Fucking peachy."

"Right," Allura was not convinced, "anyway, was that all?"

"Huh?" Red squinted, "Oh. Right. Sure, yeah, that was all."

"Cool," Allura turned her attention back towards her skates.

"Actually," Red hesitated, "no. No, that's not all."

"Hm," Allura tensed.

"Have you been avoiding me?" Red asked.

"What? No?" Allura lied through her teeth.

"It's okay if you are. I just wanted to see because if you don't want me hanging around and," Red sighed, "I'm just very bad at taking hints, is all."

"Oh," Allura furrowed her brow, "well. I have kind of been avoiding you, I'll admit."

"Cool. Glad we got that sorted out," Red turned on the heel of her boot.

"Wait!" Allura stood, and forgetting her skates were on, quite nearly wrecked her shit before grabbing onto the handle of one of the lockers, "Please, wait for a second!"

"Do you see me moving?" Red asked.

"No," Allura sighed, "look. The reason I've been avoiding you is because of all those things that I said, you know, at the sleepover last time."

"All the things you said?" Red faced her. Allura had managed to steady herself.

"I want you to know I'm not like that. I don't do things like that. I don't spill my childhood trauma on the first person who stumbles into my room! I don't cry in front of strangers! I'm not that type of person! And now I've gone and made everything weird."

"Dude, it is much weirder right now," Red raised an eyebrow.

"Look, I just. It was nice to be able to talk to you. But I don't want you to think you're suddenly the person I turn to."

"Okay."

"I'm not, like, a crybaby. Or someone who lets their problems swallow them."

"I didn't think you were," Red said.

"Good," Allura folded her arms.

"Cool."

"I'm not very good at this friend thing. This having friends thing," Allura admitted.

"What are you talking about? Everyone on the team loves you."

"They like me, sure. But that's not the same thing as being friends."

"Right, so what's the difference again?"

"The difference is friends hang out. Not at mandatory bonding exercises or celebratory post-game meals or practices, but...hanging out. Talking," Allura explained.

"Hm," Red considered this, "do you want to go out for food tonight?"

"What?" 

"After practice I mean. After I've called Katie to let her know her days are numbered. Do you like Mexican food?"

"I do," Allura locked eyes with Red, "you really want to go get food with me?"

"Do you not want to?"

"No! I mean...I do. Absolutely," Allura nodded.

"Cool," Red's phone began buzzing, "that's Katie. I've got to take this."

"Sure," Allura gestured as if to say go ahead.

"What happened?" Red wasn't talking to Allura anymore, rather in her phone, "I haven't talked to you since Saturday. If you're not dead, I am going to kill you."

* * *

"So, what's your favorite movie?" Allura asked.

"I don't know," Red said, not looking up.

"Lame answer," Allura scoffed.

"Lame question," Red raised an eyebrow.

"Come on, your favorite movie can say a lot about you," Allura defended, "it's a cliche for a reason."

"I suppose that my favorite appetizer would do the same thing," Red closed her menu, "I'm thinking enchiladas."

"Work with me here. I don't do this sort of thing often. Really at all. Never. I have never done this sort of thing," Allura ripped up her straw wrapper.

"You're right," Red sighed, "but I really don't have a favorite movie."

"Well, how do you decide what to watch?" Allura asked.

"I let the other people put on whatever and then I complain the entire time about it," Red answered, "what about you?"

"I don't know," Allura shrugged.

"Knew it," Red smiled.

"Okay, but you've gotta give me something, otherwise we're just sitting here in complete silence."

"Okay. I've got one," Red sipped her drink.

"Hit me," Allura leaned over the table in interest.

"You have to get into a fistfight with one of the girls on the team-"

"What kind of scenario is this?" Allura laughed, "Why would I have to fistfight anybody on the team?"

"Coran's making us fight over who gets to keep the regional trophy in their house during the offseason? We're in a fight club? We're trying to see who's the strongest?"

"Okay, so I have to fistfight."

"If you had to, who would you fight?" Red asked.

"That's horrible!" 

"It's my favorite question to ask people," Red shrugged.

"Do you know who Katie would fight, between the team, I mean?" Allura asked.

"Of course. She would fight me because she's known me the longest and would have the easiest time taking advantage of my weaknesses. That's always her answer."

"Lovely girl, Katie," Allura laughed, "what about you?"

"I'd fight Nyma," Red answered, "she looks like she would put up a good fight, but I could probably take her. Now you."

"Still no."

"You know who you'd fight. I can tell."

"This is absurd," Allura rolled her eyes.

"Come on," Red egged her on.

"Fine. I'd fight Plax. But not because I think I could take her. I just think she's a little annoying," Allura explained, which caused Red to burst out laughing.

"Sorry," Red took a deep breath, "that's a really good answer. I like that."

"Glad you find it amusing, it's going to plague me tonight when I try to go to sleep," Allura took a drink.

"Now you ask me something," Red folded her arms. Allura thought about it.

"Okay. This one was my dad's favorite. Would a centaur have one heart or two, and if it only has one, where would it be?"

"What?" Red scoffed.

"Like, would the heart be in the horse part or the human part," Allura elaborated, "it started wars in my family when I was little. Coran turns completely red with anger if you even bring it up with him."

"I see that and I raise you what digestive system food goes through. Or are there even organs in the human part? Or is it just one big esophagus to transfer things to the-"

"I've changed my mind!" Allura interrupted, "Jesus Christ I've changed my mind. Don't talk about that at all again ever."

"No. You started this, I'm going to finish it. I just need to figure out some logistics," Red insisted, "let's start with the respiratory system."

* * *

"So, Katie isn't going to be around for a while?" Hunk asked, gesturing for Leandro to hand him a wrench.

"Nope, not until her parents are in New York. She wants to spend as much time as she can with her parents, I guess?" Leandro answered, "I just can't believe they're leaving the house they've lived in for, I don't know, sixteen years?"

Red rode up on her bike and parked it in the driveway.

"Hey," Red greeted as she clipped her helmet to her motorcycle.

"Where the hell have you been?" Leandro asked.

"Researching horse anatomy," Red answered.

"What?" Hunk slid all the way out from under the car to give Red a weird look.

"Not important," Red waved it off, "what do we have going on here?" 

"Leandro's car is doing the thing again," Hunk said vaguely. But they'd all been around to know what it was that the thing was. It was the thing that Hunk couldn't figure out. That was a shame. Usually, Hunk was the best mechanic money could buy, even though he didn't charge money. Leandro paid him in kisses. Enter Red, who's father was a mechanic. She, however, did take money.

"Alright, let me under there," Red took off her gloves. Hunk stood, and Red laid down on the skateboard instead, "so your anniversary is this Saturday, right?" 

"Yeah," Leandro answered, "how did you know?"

"I'm good with dates," Red explained, "anyway, I know Katie wanted to do a dinner thing with you guys to celebrate and you know...she can't now. So I'd like to take you guys out instead."

"Oh, you don't have to," Leandro assured her, "that's really nice of you, but..."

"We're not really friends?" Red finished.

"That is not what I said," Leandro sputtered.

"Relax. I'm messing with you. But you know, really. You guys, Shiro, your sisters, it would be nice, I think," Red slid out from under the car, climbed into the front seat, and turned the keys.

"No rattling," Leandro marveled, "how did you..."

"Your dad's a mechanic, you learn some things," Red shrugged, "anyway. Think about it."

"Uh, sure," Red handed him the tools and shrugged off her jacket.

"Now that I'm here, do you guys want to play basketball?" Red asked.

Hunk and Leandro agreed, but they did give each other very strange looks before walking to the hoop adjoined to the garage with her.

* * *

The game Friday night was the best they'd had all season so far, this possibly being attributed to Katie's head being back in the game. She really was close to perfect. When they won by a landslide of points, they carried Katie to her mom's car while chanting her name like it was some sports movie.


	10. Sleepover

Allura hitched a ride on the back of Red’s motorcycle. It wasn’t Allura’s first time on a motorcycle, of course, but it was still exciting nonetheless. Exciting and a little nerve wracking, and Allura didn’t quite know why. Red, afterall, was a terrific driver. 

When they got to the apartment building, Red led her unceremoniously up the stairs. The elevator was out of order. It was always out of order.

She opened the door and tossed her keys to the side. 

“Well, uh, here it is,” Red pulled the elastics out of her hair, “you want something to drink? We have cola and uh, orange soda. And water. We have water.”

“Orange soda would be great,” Allura said brightly, “do I get a tour?”

“Uh,” Red paused, “bathroom is that way if that’s what you mean. And I’m not showing Wendy’s room.”

“I meant,” Allura froze, realizing where she had gone wrong.

“You meant my room?” Red finished, “Well, you’re kind of...looking at it.”

“Oh,” Allura said, “it’s nice.”

“Look, I’m only doing this so that Plaxum doesn’t throw a fit the next time I want my turn skipped,” Red explained, “we just have to get through tonight.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing wrong with your apartment.”

“It’s no penthouse,” Red muttered. Allura’s expression changed to something of a glare.

“What does that mean?” Allura asked. But before Red could formulate a response, there was a knock at the door.

“I’ll just…” Red trailed off as she approached the door. It was Flo.

“Hey!” Flo greeted, “The others are falling a bit behind. Shay and Plax rode with me. They’ll be upstairs in a minute.”

“Cool. Do you want something to drink?” Red asked, “Orange soda, cola, and-”

“Why!” Plax paused to catch her breath, “Why do you have so many fucking stairs?”

“I’m training for my match with Apollo Creed,” Red said sarcastically.

“You’re an athlete, Plax,” Allura pointed out, “you can’t walk up a few stairs?”

“That was more than a few,” Plax protested, “no normal human could withstand the amount of stairs that was.”

“I’m sorry, are you under the impression that we fucking helecoptered in?” Allura asked.

“Hello all,” Shay greeted with a grin, “sorry I took so long. One of my shoelaces caught under the stairs.”

“S’fine,” Red shrugged, “you want something to-”

“Is this what I think it is?” Flo asked, hovering the entertainment system.

“What?” Red asked.

“Red, this is a fucking NES,” Plax said.

“And like a thousand games,” Flo added.

“So?” Red asked.

“What do you mean ‘so’?” Plax asked in kind of a mocking tone, “I used to have one of these when I was a kid. My dad dropped it down the stairs in a move and it stopped working.”

“Ninja turtles, Megaman, Mario brothers, kung fu,” Flo listed them off, “this is quite the collection you have here.”

“They belonged to my dad,” Red explained.

“Oh my god,” Plax held up one game, “oh my god she has Yoshi’s Island.”

“She has a game cube too!” Shay pointed out.

“Yeah, but I have fewer games on there,” Red propped the door open with a hockey stick, “my dad said mom sold most of them when I was a baby.”

“You’ve still got some good ones!” Plax said, “Metroid, Twilight Princess, Luigi’s mansion-”

“Oh my god drop everything. She has Smash Brothers,” Flo held it up like it was the holy grail.

“Can we play?” Shay asked.

“You really want to play video games?” Red asked. 

“Uh, yeah!” Plax said.

“Well...alright,” Red shrugged, “sure. Knock yourselves out.”

“Yes!” Allura dove for one of the controllers.

“Not so fast,” Shay stopped her, “we have to figure out a fair way to decide who should go first.

“Obviously as the team leader, I should be the first player,” Plax announced.

“As the team leader’s girlfriend, I call player two,” Flo nodded.

“Not going to happen!” Allura protested. All eyes fell on Red.

“Oh,” Red was taken aback at all the attention her stuff was getting, “Allura was the first here, and Flo was the second...so.”

“Yes!” Allura smugly picked up a controller.

“Damn those stairs!” Plax cursed, “Damn them to hell.”

“Relax. You’re next,” Flo rolled her eyes and picked up the second controller.

Their video game interest was, quite honestly, a relief to Red. She had struggled to figure out activities to do with the group. Maybe she didn’t need to worry about that. They seemed fine figuring out what to do organically.

The others arrived and over the course of the night, the girls became one big huddle around the TV as they all took turns playing games. They nearly forgot to order food, they were so caught up.

To Red, the games were sort of old news. She loved them, sure. She attached sentimental value to them, too. But she rarely even turned the systems on. Wendy was always at work or school. Katie came over often, but she’d mostly play Luigi’s mansion while Red did her homework.

This, though. This was fun.

* * *

When everyone had gotten done playing video games and the food had been eaten, everyone, for the most part, passed out. Red fell asleep uneasily and woke up in the middle of the night.

She checked her phone. 4am. She groaned as silently as she could manage, and sat up. She knew that trying to sleep now would be of no use. 

Nyma and Shay were on the couch as per Nyma’s back pain. Nyma was glaring even in her sleep, arms wrapped protectively around her girlfriend. 

Everyone else was safely in their sleeping bags. Well, almost everyone. Allura’s was definitely empty. And there was no light coming from under the bathroom door. So where, exactly could she be?

Red scanned the apartment for signs of life and suddenly spotted a silhouette behind the curtains. Red approached the window and slid it open. Allura was so startled she nearly fell off the terrace.

“Hey,” Red greeted, climbing through the window.

“Hey,” Allura greeted back, “am I allowed to be out here?”

“Sure,” Red shrugged, sliding the window closed once more.

“Great,” Allura put a hand on the railing.

“Can we talk?” Red asked.

“I’m so confused as to what we’ve been doing so far,” Allura teased.

“Sure. Forget it,” Red turned back towards the window.

“Wait,” Allura said, “I’m sorry. You were talking. Please continue.”

“Right,” Red sighed, “I just wanted to say that...I’m sorry for the penthouse comment earlier.”

“Oh, I forgot about that. No worries!”

“You did?” Red asked. Allura hesitated.

“No. I’ve been pissed about it all night,” Allura confessed.

“Right...well...I’m sorry,” Red continued, “I know you’re not rich or anything and it’s unfair of me to treat you like you’re spoiled or something.”

“I agree,” Allura said, “but you can forget about it. I’m not mad.”

“Are you sure?” Red asked.

“Christ. I’m fucking sure,” Allura snapped.

“Whatever,” Red furrowed her brow.

“Yeah, whatever,” Allura repeated.

“I came out here to apologize to you,” Red reiterated.

“Maybe I’m a little sick of people apologizing to me for treating me like a fucking princess, yeah?”

“I don’t know why anyone would treat you like a princess. The only royalty you are is a royal pain in the ass,” Red huffed.

“Real mature-”

“Mature? You want to talk to me about maturity? Let’s review, shall we?” Red began pacing, “you scolded me for catching you skate in a public place, you tell me secrets, you avoid me for a week, then when I try to be friends, you do stuff like this. Fuck you. I’m going back inside.”

“You’re right,” Allura sighed.

“What?”

“You’re right. Oh god, I’m being a dick right now aren’t I?”

“Not like,” Red shrugged, “that much.”

“You were trying to apologize to me for something that wasn’t even that big a deal to begin with and I’m brushing you off,” Allura scoffed, “I really am just comically bad at this.”  
“I get it,” Red sighed, “I mean. I really don’t. But it’s okay.”

“Yeah?” Allura asked.

“Yeah,” Red nodded, “hey, you want to see something cool?”

“Who in their right mind would say no to that question?” Allura asked.

“Alright, don’t freak out,” Red instructed. She backed up to the railing and hopped up.

“Not freaking out so far,” Allura raised an eyebrow.

“Perfect. Keep doing that then,” Red swung her legs over the railing and hopped down onto the roof.

“Okay, what the fuck are you doing?” Allura asked.

“Standing on the roof,” Red answered plainly, “now you.”

“Absolutely not,” Allura scoffed.

“Come on,” Red encouraged, “I’m not going to let you fall.”

“I don’t feel like breaking my neck tonight, thanks.”

“Allura, you’ve gotta trust me,” Red tilted her head to the side, “I promise, you won’t be disappointed.”

“Well,” Allura hesitated, “fine.”

Cautiously as she could manage, Allura followed Red’s moves. She wobbled a bit, but she stood firmly on the roof.

“Now, come on,” Red extended a hand.

“What kind of an apartment building has a slanted roof?” Allura took Red’s hand. Slowly, Red led her up the roof until they reached nearly the top. 

“Now, we sit,” Red released Allura’s hand.

“We sit?” Allura asked, “that’s it?”

“That’s it,” Red shrugged, 

“I am entirely underwhelmed with this,” Allura sighed.

“But look,” Red pointed at the sky in front of them. The sun was starting to rise.

“You couldn’t, I don’t know, watch the sunrise from the terrace?” Allura asked.

“Not as cool,” Red shook her head, “I’m not up often enough to see the sunrise regularly.”

“So when you do, you make it count,” Allura reasoned.

“That’s right.”

“I have to admit, this is pretty cool.”

“Told you so,” Red smiled.

“Yeah,” Allura sighed, “you did.”

Allura leaned her head on Red’s shoulder.

* * *

“Sorry I’m late,” Red nearly crashed face first into the table.

“It’s okay,” Hunk waved her off.

“You would not believe how long it took me to get them away from the NES and go home,” Red continued.

“That’s why you’ve gotta use a crowbar,” Shiro joked.

“Where are your sisters?” Red asked, tucking her helmet beneath her seat.

“They couldn’t make it,” Leandro sighed, “too many things to move around.”

“Well, whatever. More for us,” Red shrugged.

“This is a buffet, Red,” Leandro pointed out.

“Right,” Red sat down.

“So, Katie’s looking for a new place to live,” Leandro never left a lull in conversation alone.

“Oh, is she?” Shiro asked.

“Anybody heard from her in the last few days?” Hunk asked.

“We had a match yesterday,” Red answered, “she crushed it, but she was out the door as soon as the match was over.”

“Poor girl,” Shiro shook his head, “I can’t believe her parents are moving across the country.”

“It’s a lot to deal with. I’m sure that’s why she hasn’t reached out,” Hunk said.

“Have you guys looked at the menu?” Red asked.

“Red…” Leandro trailed off.

“You can get anything you want. Money is no object,” Red assured them.

“Red,” Leandro tried again, “you really really don’t have to-”

“I want to. That’s why I’m doing it,” Red insisted.

“How about we only pay for our own stuff?” Shiro suggested. 

“Katie wanted it to be a present. I really don’t see why-” Red froze, “She told you.”

“What?” Hunk straightened his spine.

“Katie told you, didn’t she?” Red huffed.

“...Yeah,” Leandro confessed, “we told her what you were doing for us and she kind of flipped out.”

“I don’t need your pity,” Red told them, “everything’s fine. If it wasn’t fine, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“You and Wendy are-”

“We’re fine,” Red snapped, “everything is fine.”

“Just...if you wanted to bail,” Shiro said.

“Jesus fucking Christ, I can afford to take my friends out to eat,” Red shut her menu abruptly, “why don’t you guys let me worry about my money, okay?”

“Sorry,” Leandro put a hand on her shoulder, “we’re just worried is all.”

“I don’t need your pity,” Red scoffed, “I don’t want it.”

“We know,” Leandro sort of shrunk into his sweater, “I know what it’s like. I know how it feels when someone…”

“Does this?” Red finished.

“Yeah,” Leandro sighed.

“It’s okay,” Red sighed, “I know you guys mean well. I just...let me do this for you, okay?”

“Okay,” Leandro smiled.

“Good. Now that our very special episode has concluded,” Red stared down her menu.

“So,” Hunk broke up the silence, “my brother committed arson the other night.”

“What?” Leandro and the others perked up.

“Not really. I just wanted to say something that got your attention.

“Mission accomplished,” Leandro wheezed.

And then Red started laughing. Like, cackling. And it was contagious. Shiro started laughing, and then Leandro. And then everything was suddenly good and normal.

They rarely stopped laughing all night.


	11. Moves Like Jagger (I'm Very Sorry)

“I can’t believe that this isn’t going to be your house anymore,” Leandro said, picking up a box.

“It’s just a house,” Katie shrugged.

“What do you want us to do with this?” Hunk nudged a large pile of various trinkets with his foot.

“Stuff to toss,” Katie explained.

“You’re just gonna throw this out?” Leandro asked.

“That,” Katie said, “is a destroyed teddy bear.”

“Yeah, and?” Leandro blinked, not seeing the connection.

“I’m telling you, it’s beyond repair,” Katie insisted, lifting it up from the pile, “my mom tried to patch it up and it just...There’s not enough there.”

“Nah, I could figure out a way to fix it,” Leandro sized the teddy bear up.

“But why,” Katie asked, “would you want to?”

“My little cousin used to have a bear just like this,” Leandro explained, “it got lost I think.”

“You know, you could probably find it online,” Katie pointed out.

“I looked. One hundred dollars a pop because the mom-and-pop that made these went out of business a few years back because of build a bear workshop.”

“Damn big bear production,” Red muttered, not looking up.

“She’s making fun of me, I can feel it,” Leandro rolled his eyes, “but yeah, do you care if I take this?”

“Why not?” Katie shrugged, “although if your sister sees a teddy bear with a missing eye and teeth marks in your backpack, she’s bound to assume you’re a serial killer of some kind.”

“That is a risk I’m willing to take,” Leandro said, tossing it aside.

“I made lemonade,” Colleen chimed in, carrying a drink tray, “it’s um, well, it’s not great.”

“It’s hot out enough for us not to care,” Leandro said, taking a glass from off the tray.

“We have to finish loading up the truck soon, but I figured you kids have earned yourself a break,” Colleen continued.

“Thanks, Mom,” Katie said. 

“How’s it coming along in here?” she asked.

“Great. Most of my boxes are already loaded in Leandro’s car, I just have to sort through what stuff to send with you guys and all of that,” Katie answered.

“And what,” Colleen asked, furrowing a brow at the pile of junk on the floor, “is this?”

“That’s a pile of junk,” Katie said matter of factly.

“Perhaps you are misunderstanding the purpose of my inquiry,” Colleen blinked at her.

“It’s all the stuff that I’m throwing out,” Katie specified.

“Mhm. And I gave you bags for this purpose,” Colleen pointed to the box of plastic bags in the corner of the room.

“But mom.” Katie protested, “this is faster.”

“I very very much doubt that’s true,” Colleen said, “pick it up. Your friends are going to trip and hurt themselves.”

“Not if they watch where they’re going,” Katie retorted.

“Katherine Holt, you will pick this garbage off of the floor or so help me God I will pack the green GameBoy with your brother and leave you with the grey one.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Katie gasped.

“Try me,” she narrowed her eyes. Katie glared at her and picked up a garbage bag.

“This one’s going to the new house, right?” Leandro asked, lifting one of the boxes.

“Yes,” Katie answered, “every box over in that corner is going to Mom and Dad’s new house.”

“You heard her,” Leandro said, motioning for the rest of them to follow suit.

“What exactly are you sending to our new house?” Colleen asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Pictures of me, clothes I’ve outgrown because adults are obsessed with those, video games I want Matt to have, projects from art class that should have been burned, et cetera,” Katie explained.

“I see,” Colleen paused, “are you sure you’re gonna be alright out here on your own?”

“I’m not on my own, Mom,” Katie retorted, “I have the team, I have Leandro and Hunk-”

“You know what I mean,” Colleen stopped her.

“I guess I do,” Katie sighed, “I’m gonna be fine, Mom, I’ve been by myself before.”

“This isn’t summer camp,” Colleen said, “you’re not gonna be able to move back in with us in August.”

“I know that,” Katie looked up, “are  _ you _ going to be okay?”

“Of course not,” Colleen admitted.

“Mom, I’m gonna be fine,” Katie insisted.

“Just so long as you’re sure,” Colleen sounded entirely unconvinced.

“I swear, I’m gonna call every day,” Katie promised.

“Don’t make commitments you can’t keep, dear,” Colleen scolded, “I know you think you mean that now, but you’re a college student that works and is on a derby team.”

“So?” 

“So, you’re gonna get through one week of calling me without fail every day and then one day you’re gonna come home too tired from whatever it is you do and fall asleep before you get the chance and then you’ll feel guilty about it,” Colleen said.

“Okay, okay,” Katie stood up.

“Besides, there’s no way something eventful is going to happen every day of your life.”

“Exciting things happen to me every day, I’ll have you know,” Katie informed her, “I live a very full life.”

“Name one exciting thing that happened within the last few days,” Colleen challenged.

“Well, that doesn’t count. I’ve been here helping you guys get ready to move,” Katie pointed out.

“Even still,” Colleen said.

“I take your point,” Katie sighed, “okay. But I’ll call you as often as I can.”

“You’d better,” Colleen smiled at her.

“Well I,” Katie looked back at the boxes, “I guess I should get back to…”

“By all means,” Colleen took a step back. It was silent for a few seconds, and then Colleen walked out.

* * *

The goodbye was long. It was very long. Red, Leandro and Hunk stood by the front door watching everyone hug.

“This is so weird,” Leandro looked down.

“Yeah, you’ve said that about a hundred times,” Red pointed out.

“It keeps being true,” Leandro shrugged.

After everything had been said and done, Katie stood frozen to the sidewalk watching the SUV struggle to drive out of the cul de sac with a moving trailer in tow. When it was out of sight, she walked back towards the house.

“Dad ordered a pizza. We’re gonna chill out here while we eat it since the house is all empty and the new owners aren’t gonna be here until Thursday,” was all Katie said.

“Are you-” Leandro started.

“I’m fine,” Katie finished.

“Are you sure?” Hunk asked, “You don’t really look fine.”

“Thanks,” Katie said robotically.

“You know what I mean,” Hunk scratched his arm.

“Yeah, but it’s a dumb question,” Katie crossed her arms, “how am I doing? Do you mean with my family moving across the country or with not having a place to live?”

“You’re staying with me,” Hunk said.

“Not to stay. To live,” Katie corrected.

“Well…” Hunk thought he had something useful to say, but he just trailed off instead.

“I’m going to be fine,” Katie insisted, “just...you know. I’m not gonna be very much fun in the coming weeks.”

“Okay,” Leandro shrugged.

“I’m probably gonna snap at you guys,” Katie continued, “and I’m still not gonna be hanging out much until I figure out what to do.”

“Sounds good,” Red chimed in.

“Are you guys even listening?” Katie asked.

“Katie, we’re not worried about you being a meh friend for a little while,” Hunk assured her, “in fact, I think that would make us shitty friends too.”

“So you’re saying I  _ am _ a shitty friend,” Katie frowned.

“We’re saying,” Leandro said, “you’re dealing with a lot right now. And we don’t want you to feel guilty for withdrawing.”

“But I’ve already spent so much time lately not hanging out with you guys,” Katie pointed out, “I didn’t even make your anniversary dinner.”

“Will you stop about the anniversary dinner?” Leandro put a hand on her shoulder, “it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”  
“And you guys aren’t upset with me for not wanting to hang out?”

“We’ll be a little upset,” Red admitted, “it..you know, nobody’s ever really happy about having to give their friend some space. But we understand is the point here.”

“You guys are the best,” Katie pulled them into a group hug.

“Now, about that GameBoy,” Leandro said.

“Oh, yeah,” Katie pulled it out of her pocket and handed it over, “the games are in your car somewhere. If you can find them, you can play them.”

“Sweet!” Leandro took it from her.

“Should I tell the guys you’re not making it to practice tomorrow?” Red asked.

“Nah, I’ll be there,” Katie said.

“Are you sure?” Red asked.

“Why not?” Katie shrugged, “I mean, the only thing that really makes me feel like things are normal in all this is derby. I’ve missed a lot of practice already. I think I’m ready to get back to it.”

“Sweet,” Red grinned.

“Before I disappear off the face of the earth again, who’s up for a bad lemonade chugging contest?” Katie asked, “Winner doesn’t have to carry boxes in at Hunk’s apartment.”

“Oh, you are so on,” Leandro agreed, opening the front door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I just want to thank you for being patient when it comes to updates. This fic has been sort of my backburner on and off. But that changes now! I want to put as much love into this fic as I've been meaning to. At least one update a week is a promising number I think I can swing.  
Thanks for reading!


	12. A Bout Time

All of the lesbians on the bus who had a hating boy bands phase were completely perplexed as all the lesbians on the bus who had a regular boyband phase sang with perfect, almost reflexive memory as Coran loudly blasted Hangin’ Tough from the shittiest little ipod doc this side of the Rockies. 

“I can’t believe this is happening to us right now,” Katie said.

“Isn’t New Kids, like, old? Like, popular twenty years before any of us were born?” Red asked.

“I can’t hear what you haters are saying over the piano solo,” Plax said from the next seat up.

“Yeah, speaking of, why is there a piano solo in this boyband song?” Katie asked.

“This thing is a fucking disaster,” Nyma agreed, “and I’m not saying that because I like to complain. I’m saying that as a member of the human race with ears.”

“Well if you keep complaining we’ll have no choice but to start the song over,” Plax threatened.

“I beg you to end my life before that happens,” Nyma slumped back into her seat.

“So, Katie, how’s it going?” Plax asked.

“Fine,” Katie answered.

“I know you’ve got a lot going on right now,” Plax continued, “and even though I’m not exactly positive what exactly you’re going through, we were all kind of wondering if you were opposed to hotel shenanigans.”

“What kind of shenanigans?” Katie leaned forward.

“We were gonna get together and watch a movie tonight in one of the rooms,” Plax explained, “the one perk to my girlfriend having an ancient laptop is it’s also enormous and very good for movies.”

“Excuse me, are you talking shit about the very laptop you expect to use?” Florona chimed in.

“Come on, Ro, I didn’t mean it,” Plax put an arm around her.

“I’m not opposed to shenanigans,” Katie said finally.

“Sweet!” Plax grinned.

“As long as you’re not opposed to letting me sleep through the night,” Katie added, “I don’t want any theorizing about gameplay that could have worked better, no late-night analysis. Nothing.”

“What! That’s ridiculous. I have to plan, Katie, that’s how we get our strategies,” Plax protested.

“Well, you can do it quieter,” Katie pressed, “I’m not watching a movie with you guys unless you meet these terms. And you can do your strategizing on our way back to town.”

“That’s when I sleep,” Plax said.

“And why do you need to sleep on the bus ride back? Because you stayed up all night planning match strategies instead of sleeping?” Katie asked. A chorus of ooo’s from the other girls followed.

“Fine,” Plax agreed, “I’ll skip my late night strategizing. Just this once.”

“I’m in,” Katie smiled, satisfied with her expert arguing skills that were definitely not learned from the Ace Attorney games she’d uncovered while moving.

“Holy shit. You got Katie to do something,” El chimed in, “it’s a miracle.”

“Shut up,” Katie rolled her eyes.

“I have to be a bully or I’ll die,” El said.

The song ended, and Plax focused her eyes on El.

“Your turn to pick,” she said.

“Uh,” El considered what she wanted to put on, “how about Backstreet’s Back?”

“I’ll let him know,” Allura stood.

“I thought you didn’t like boy bands?” Katie was utterly betrayed by this development.

“This is revenge for eating chips on my couch,” El said, “I tried to take a nap on it the other day and I felt like it was covered in fire ants.”

Katie groaned, and El kissed her on the cheek. This was gonna be a long bus ride.

* * *

When they got to the arena, Coran gave them a pep talk.

“Okay, girls, this is one of your most important matches of the season. This will determine if you’re going to make regionals,” Coran said, “I want all of you to put Plax’s best strategies to work. Don’t question her. No pressure, but this is a big one. If you lose, the season is over.”

“Thanks, coach,” Nyma said sarcastically. It was not a great pep talk. 

“See you ladies out there!” Coran chirped, either unaware or purposefully ignorant of her tone. When he was out of sight, Nyma turned back towards them.

“Stay out of your own heads. This is just another match,” she told them, “if we lose, we lose, but I don’t want it to be because you were too busy stressing out about the end result.”

Nyma skated away before any of them had the chance to respond.

“Wow. Now that was a pep talk. How come she’s not the captain?” Allura said. Plax shot her a glare. Allura shrugged.

“Okay, let’s go over the team strategy one more time,” Plax took out a sheet of paper. The girls groaned.

“You don’t want to call Nyma back over here for this?” Shay asked.

“She told me she was going to kick my ass if I tried to go over this plan with her, quote, for the zillionth goddamn time,” Plax explained.

“Well, that’s as good a reason as any,” Shay shrugged.

“Okay, there’s gonna be a lot of whips. Katie, if you see an arm out, you take it,” Plax instructed, “Red, I need you near the front of the pack. Nobody checks like you. Flo, you need to be in the middle blocking people. Everyone else, same positions as practiced. Got it?”

The girls all nodded.

“Then let’s do this!” Plax crumpled up the piece of paper and the team skated towards the rink. It wasn’t long before the announcer started.

“Welcome, regulars and irregulars! For those of you new here, this is our tenth game of the season, and folks, this is a big one. Going up against our home Southern Hellraisers is the Sapphic She-Devils. Let’s see if a new jammer makes that much of a difference, or if this disgraced team has been doomed from the start,” The announcer shouted into the microphone.

“What the hell’s his problem?” Red asked.

“Rival teams. They tend to be much ruder than your garden variety announcer. We’ve lost two years in a row to them,” Allura explained.

“Enjoy saying that while it lasts,” one of the girls from the other teams chimed in.

“Bitch,” Allura muttered.

“Ready! Set! Go!” The announcer said, “and both teams surprisingly start off strong.”

Katie broke through the pack with ease. 

“Pixie Pandemonium takes the position as lead jammer. But how long can her victory last?” The announcer asked, “My guess? Not long at all.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill this guy,” Red spoke under her breath and it was too loud for anyone to hear her, but the others knew what sentiment she was trying to convey.

“Looks like Ziggy Sparkdust is hot on her trail and. Oh! She passed her. But looks like Big Blue’s holding out her arm. Pandemonium takes it. She just got whipped like my nana’s buttercream frosting. I should give her a call, I have not spoken to her in a long time.”

Katie rolled her eyes and weaved through the team members.

“That’s four points for the She-Devils and that’s a jam!” 

The girls skated off the rink to refuel.

“We’re doing great so far,” Plax said, “we just need to keep this energy throughout the match.”

“Don’t overdo the pep talk thing,” Nyma said.

“Since when do you get to tell me how to run my team?” Plax asked.

“Since you suck at doing it on your own,” Nyma answered.

“She’s new at this, cut her a break,” El scolded.

“We’re winning, aren’t we?” Plax folded her arms.

“Yeah, no thanks to you,” Nyma said.

“Guys, please,” Allura pinched the bridge of her nose, “I swear to god if you guys keep bitching…”

“Looks like we’ve got a catfight over here,” the announcer sauntered over. 

“Fuck off!” Nyma shouted.

“What? I’m just kidding around. You know, showmanship,” he made his voice sound as innocuous as possible.

“Nope,” Nyma skated towards him, “you’re allowed to say stuff during the match and make your shitty jokes-”

“Shitty?” he glared at her, “Who do you think you’re talking to, Sweetie?”

“But outside of your game commentary, you don’t get to say creepy shit at us and do whatever. You mess with my girls again, I will kick your ass so hard you won’t remember what roller derby is. Got it?” Nyma said all of this with the sweetest grin plastered on her face.

The announcer glared, opened his mouth to respond, closed it, and then smiled.

“I think I’m gonna go have a word with the other team. My apologies, ladies,” he said, and walked away.

“Wow Nyma, you’re a hardass,” Allura observed.

“Thanks,” Nyma clipped her helmet back on. Plax just grinned at her, prompting Nyma to say, “what are you looking at?”

“You called us your girls,” Plax answered.

“Don’t push it,” Nyma spoke through gritted teeth.

“Yes ma’am,” Plax replied, “one more thing, though.”

“What?” Nyma groaned. Plax tossed her the pivot helmet.

“You’ve earned it,” Plax said.

“Nobody cares about this more than you,” Nyma protested, “besides, I don’t think I could strategize.”

“Then we share,” Plax suggested.

“Is this allowed?” Allura asked, “switching team roles mid-game?”

“It’s not explicitly against the rules. And I intend to exploit that,” Plax answered.

“We share?” Nyma raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t let it go to your head. I’m still in charge,” she said, “you’re just better in the actual match at doing what a pivot is supposed to do.

“Okay,” Nyma said, trying to hide how extremely cool she thought this was of Plax. 

The next jam started off strong.

“Looks like the she-devils might be ending their losing streak this year,” the announcer said, “though, with a new pivot, mid-game no less, it’s gonna be tough for them to adjust.”

Red checked a blocker with her left shoulder nearly as hard as she could.

“What do you know, a couple more points for the She-Devils. How exciting,” the announcer sounded as bored as one could while still screaming at the top of his lungs. He made eye contact with Ziggy Sparkdust.

Sparkdust, discreetly as she could, tripped Katie. Katie couldn’t catch herself in time, twisting her ankle just trying, and fell flat on her face. Of course, it wasn’t discreet enough.

“That’s gonna be a penalty for the Hellraisers!” The announcer shouted, “Ziggy Sparkdust is not allowed to compete in the rest of the match, and it looks like Pixie Pandemonium has had her last hurrah for this one, too.”

“Katie!” Red skated over to her. Katie attempted to stand, hissing as she did so. Her nose was bleeding.

“I’m fine,” Katie said, “I can still compete.”

“Like hell, you can! You're standing on one leg!” Allura protested.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do without you,” Plax said, “you’re the fastest jammer we’ve ever had.”

“I don’t know,” Katie touched her nose to make sure it wasn’t broken, “could we ask for a rematch?”

“A rematch?” Allura asked, “That would put us one game behind everyone else.”

“Yeah, and it’s a reputation ruiner. In derby, asking for a rematch is like throwing a tantrum,” Plax chimed in, “we’re winning. We can’t stop now!”

“Enough,” Nyma said, “she’s our best player. And yeah, it sucks, but if this is what she wants to do, I’m behind her.”

“Thanks, Nyma,” Katie said. The others grumbled reluctant statements of agreement.

The five of them made their way over to the announcer. He was talking to Ziggy Sparkdust. She looked like she was yelling.

“Calm down, Babe,” he said with a smile.

“I will not fucking calm down. You told me that you were gonna look the other way!” she growled.

“You can’t blame me, your work was sloppy,” he defended.

“I’ll show you sloppy you son of a-”

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” Nyma asked.

“Nothing!” the announcer said, “She’s mad because I penalized her for unsportsmanlike behavior. That’s completely normal.”

“You’re a fucking douche,” Sparkdust stormed off.

“You…” Nyma was furious, “you asked her to cheat.”

“You’ve got no proof of that,” he grinned, “now, was there something you wanted to tell me, or are you just taking in the view?”

“Well. Actually, yes,” Nyma admitted, “we-”

“I changed my mind,” Katie said.

“What?” Nyma locked eyes with her.

“I changed my mind,” Katie paused to wipe the blood from under her nose, “give them hell.”

Nyma nodded.

The next match started, and the team was faster, meaner, and more determined than ever. Nyma wasn’t quite as fast as Katie, but she was still nearly a blur.

“Looks like the She-Devils aren’t out of tricks just yet,” the announcer said, “three points!”

“Those are my girls!” Katie cheered from the sidelines as Coran brought her an ice pack.

“How are you feeling?” Coran asked.

“Don’t hate me but I think I’m missing practice on Monday,” she answered, “but no more after that, I swear.”

“Take all the time you need,” he said, “your nose?”

“Not broken,” she said, “but not exactly happy either.”

“The She-Devils score two more points!”

“What’s that guy’s deal?” she asked.

“He’s a jerk,” Coran answered.

“Yeah, I figured. But I mean…”

“He used to be our announcer,” Coran explained, “and I fired him because he kept making rude comments. Not Nyma rude. Downright humiliating.”

“Oh,” Katie said, “and then they just...hired him here?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Coran shrugged, “crossovers like that are actually fairly common. Usually under better circumstances.”

“Really?” Katie asked.

“Yeah. Nyma, for example, used to be on this team.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Katie looked at the rink.

“Not even close. She quit after another player cracked her jaw,” he continued, “that same player was banned from the league for fracturing Allura’s ankle last year.”

“Holy shit,” Katie mumbled.

“My sentiments exactly,” he nodded, “she’s spectacular, isn’t she?”

“She’s pretty good,” Katie agreed. They watched the rest of the match in awed silence. The she-devils won. It wasn’t even close.

“That was amazing!” Katie shouted as they skated towards her. She tried to walk over to them and instantly regretted it.

“We’re going to regionals,” Nyma grinned.

“Nyma, has anyone ever told you you’re, like, the man?” El asked.

“That was so cool,” Allura agreed.

“This is the best season of all time,” Plax chimed in. Katie just reached out her fist. Nyma bumped it.

Their celebration was cut short when the announcer walked by, hanging his head low.

“I’ll be back,” Nyma said, following him. She skated in front of him and blocked his path.

“If you’ve come here to intimidate me-” he said.

“Oh, intimidate doesn’t begin to fucking cut it,” she snapped, “you were on my nerves before, but now you’re just plain on my bad side. I already told you to leave my friends alone.”

“And you’re gonna what? Beat me up? I think your bark might be worse than your bite,” he scoffed. 

“If there’s one thing you don’t want to gamble on, it’s how much I care about my friends. I had it rougher than a lot of kids. Your ass couldn’t take me if I was blindfolded. So don’t push your luck.”

“Spare me the little orphan Annie speech,” he rolled his eyes. She scowled. Then she punched him in the gut, not as hard as she could but almost. He keeled over. 

“That,” she said, kneeling, “was a warning shot. Next time I hear about you doing something like this, or being in a girl’s personal space, calling her names. If you even look at another girl wrong, not just my girls, any girl in the league, I’ll make this look like a spa treatment. Is that clear, Sweetie?”

He groaned in agreement. Satisfied with that interaction, she began walking away. It wasn’t long before she was stopped by Ziggy Sparkdust of all people.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“No thanks,” Nyma replied. She tried to move, but Ziggy stepped in front of her.

“I wanted to say I was sorry,” she continued.

“Since when do Hellraisers apologize?” Nyma asked.

“We deserve that,” she smiled, “look, we get carried away. We have the worst reputation in the league, and we’ve earned it.”

“I agree. Move.”

“I have a point,” she said, “I think it’s pretty badass, how you were out there. And what you did for your girl, that was pretty badass too.”

“Standard Pivot duties,” Nyma shrugged.

“No, that’s bullshit. You went above that when you made sure she was okay before taking over.”

“I guess,” Nyma folded her arms,

“I also wanted to thank you for what you did a minute ago,” she added.

“Punching a guy in the stomach?” Nyma raised an eyebrow.

“Standing up for all the girls in the league. You could get disqualified for that, but you did it anyway. That takes a lot,” she said, and reached out a hand, “good game.”

“What, are you miss goodie two shoes now?” Nyma asked.

“No. I can’t even promise I’m gonna fight fair from now on. But, you know, you’ve earned my respect,” she paused, “I owe you one.”

Nyma considered her words.

“Only mess with me if you’re gonna mess with someone.”

“What?”

“We can call it even if you leave my teammates alone,” Nyma explained.

“Oh,” Sparkdust said, “yeah. You’ve got it.”

“Good,” Nyma shook her hand.


	13. Cookies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter includes brief mentions of religious trauma (I'm projecting again lol) if that's something you can't handle, feel free to skip this chapter. Stay safe and thanks for reading<3

El woke up to the sound of clashing coming from the kitchen. She took her bat to investigate where the noise was coming from and was surprised to see her roommate sheepishly picking pots up off the ground. 

“What the hell are you doing?” El asked. Nyma seemed to just now notice her presence.

“Oh, hi,” Nyma said.

“Oh, hi?” El repeated.

“Do you know where the cookie cutters are?” Nyma soldiered on, seemingly either not noticing or caring the disturbance she caused.

“We don’t have cookie cutters,” El answered, “what do you think this is? Lifestyles of the rich and famous?”

“The..” Nyma paused, “isn’t that a song?”

“We don’t have cookie cutters,” El said, “use a glass.”

“There are no clean glasses,” Nyma fired back.

“Maybe if you did the dishes last night,” El was snippy. She could tell that Nyma was upset, and she was being snippy. Some roommate, she thought.

“I’ll have to clean a glass,” Nyma grumbled.

“If you could clean the other dishes while you’re at it,” El pressed.

“Sure. Whatever,” Nyma answered.

“Nyma?” 

“Yes?” 

“Why the hell are you making cookies at,” El glanced at the clock, “three in the morning?”

“It’s a long story,” Nyma protested.

“Well, now that I’m awake, I have plenty of time,” El pointed out. Nyma closed the cabinet. Well, it was more akin to a slam.

“It’s a Rolo thing,” she said finally.

“Oh,” it was a Rolo thing. Rolo things were specifically not up for discussion. 

But the thing was, it was late, and El was pissed off. She wanted to let Nyma know that she was pissed off, and that the fact she didn’t like it when people talked about Rolo wasn’t an excuse for waking her up and baking cookies in the middle of the night like a maniac. 

“You bake. I’ll clean,” is what El said instead, walking over to the sink. And Nyma wanted to thank her, but she wasn’t good at thanking people, especially when she was tired and sad as she was.

“Cool,” was what she settled on, adding “I’ll do the dishes tomorrow.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” El said, “do you want to talk about this Rolo thing?”

“Fuck no,” Nyma said, “you know you don’t ask.”

“Well, yeah,” El agreed, “but you’re not supposed to make noise when I’m asleep. So, as long as we’re breaking rules.”

“I’m sorry I woke you,” Nyma mumbled.

“It’s okay,” El said.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you,” Nyma added.

“Okay,” El sighed.

“If,” Nyma started, “If I was going to talk to someone-”

“It would be Shay, right?” El asked, “I get it. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

“It would be you,” Nyma said. 

It was silent.

“I mean, Shay’s great. But she doesn’t get it,” Nyma elaborated.

“I suppose I do get it?” El asked.

“You get a lot of things about me,” Nyma told her, “you’ve been through the same stuff.”

“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t get it,” El, for some reason in this rare instance Nyma was opening up to her, decided to defend the concept of talking to someone else, “and just because I went through the same stuff doesn’t mean I do.”

“But you  _ do,”  _ Nyma repeated.

“Do you want to elaborate or are you just going to tell me that I get you and leave it at that?” El asked.

Nyma seemed to consider her.

“Rolo used to make these cookies. Jenna, our foster mom taught him to bake. Anyway, they were chocolate and coconut and I don’t even know what else. But they always made me feel less shitty. So I figured, I know that Katie is kind of…”

“Oh,” El said.

“One word of this to anyone on the team and you’re dead where you stand,” Nyma added, “anyway, he wrote down the recipe, and I’ve seen him do it like a thousand times, but I just. I can’t seem to…”

El couldn’t tell whether her eyes were red because she was frustrated or sad. She wasn’t sure which was preferable.

“Just...would you help me figure this out?” she asked.

“Sure,” El shrugged. She reached for the recipe, but Nyma snatched it before she could, “what?”

“This was Jenna’s recipe,” Nyma said.

“You want my help, right?” El asked.

“You know I do,” Nyma locked eyes with her.

“You’re going to have to actually let me help you,” El pointed out.

“Fine,” Nyma handed her the recipe. She probably didn’t care so much that it was Jenna’s recipe. 

“Thank you,” El read off the instructions.

“Have you done all that stuff?” El asked.

“To the letter,” Nyma answered, “but it doesn’t look right.”

“It looks,” El said, “like cookie dough.”

“It doesn’t look the way that he does it,” Nyma pressed. She seemed to be very deliberately avoiding looking at the fridge.

“Well, I’m not going to let you waste a delicious looking batch of cookies because you didn’t think they looked quite delicious enough on what I have to assume is your first try,” El said, “furthermore, we absolutely would not be able to afford that to begin with.”

“So…” Nyma looked at the oven, “I should cook these.”

“You should cook them,” El agreed.

“Okay,” Nyma sighed.

When the cookies were finished baking, Nyma’s face practically lit up.

“What the fuck? These taste  _ exactly _ like Rolo’s,” she said.

“See?” El nudged her.

“Yeah. Thanks,” Nyma stood.

“I didn’t do anything,” El said.

“I would have definitely thrown them away,” Nyma scraped one off of the tray with a spatula, “try one.”

El took the cookie and bit into it.

“They’re really good, Nyma,” she assured her. 

“I’m sure you’ll be very popular when you drop them off to Katie,” Nyma placed the finished cookies into the tupperware.

“Two things. One, are you sure that we can’t just keep all of these for ourselves?” El asked, “Two, you’re not giving them to her?”

“I don’t want her to think that…” Nyma looked at the tupperware.

“Katie already knows you care about her,” El said, “the jig is up.”

“Yeah, well, I still didn’t need to bake her cookies.”

“It was a nice thing for you to do,” El walked towards her.

“Shay baked me brownies when Rolo…” she trailed off.

“And that was nice of her to do,” El replied.

“It was. But I remember getting into a fight with her about that.”

“I can’t picture you and Shay fighting,” El said.

“That’s why we broke up for a year,” Nyma explained.

“Over  _ brownies?”  _ El wanted to laugh. She didn’t.

“That’s how it started,” Nyma said, “she gave me brownies and I said ‘thanks, I’m not sad about Rolo anymore because I have brownies now.”

El didn’t know what to say so she didn’t. She just nodded.

“And she said she was sorry and that made me even madder. So I left. And I ate all the brownies in one sitting. I had Allura give her the tray back for me.”

El was worried if she said anything, she would scare Nyma.

“She came over and asked me why I was so pissed at her and I said I wasn’t even though I was because I knew it wasn’t fair of me. And she tried to pry so I just…” Nyma hesitated, “I just laid into her. I think I called her a carebear or something. And she left. And she didn’t talk to me at all for like a month.”

“I remember that,” El managed.

“When she did, she said we were better off friends. And I thought I was gonna quit derby because we had this perfect thing going but I fucked it up.” Nyma wouldn’t look at El, “but she accepted my apology. I don’t know why I was so mean. I think I was mad because I couldn’t yell at Rolo. But I  _ really  _ hurt her. It was a long time before we were really friends and not just people who saw each other. It was a long time before we could even think about dating again.”

“Yeah,” El said.

“And look, I know I’m kind of a bitch. It’s no secret I’m bad at the friend thing. But I’ve always been nice to her because even in my worst nightmares I couldn’t picture her hurting me. It just doesn’t seem like something she’d do.”

“But you hurt her,” El finished.

“Yes. I hurt her. And for some reason, she forgave me. So I’ve been trying to be nicer to people. With mixed results. But I don’t take my anger out on people. Not anymore,” Nyma lifted the tupperware, “this is stupid.”

“What?” 

“Giving Katie the cookies. Or making you do it. She might get mad.”

“You seem to forget Katie is significantly nicer than you,” El said. She instantly knew it was the wrong thing to say. 

“You’re right,” Nyma said, “I still think it’s lame.”

“Tomorrow at practice, you are going to give her your cookies. I don’t care if you’re embarrassed. If you think she’s gonna be mad at them, you’re doing me no favors by pawning them off on me.”

Nyma considered this.

“I’m not going to be nice about it.”

“I would never expect you to.”

“Whatever,” was all Nyma said.

* * *

Katie’s ankle was still twisted. She was going to need to be off of it for another week. This didn’t stop her from going to practice, though, looking irritated from off to the side that she wasn’t participating.

Katie was in the middle of being bored and rude when she saw Nyma was walking towards her. El was behind her, slowly nudging her along. Nyma halted right before being within reasonable talking distance from Katie. El gave her a push that sent her nearly falling flat on her face.

“Hi,” Nyma said. She looked behind her for El, but El was already walking back to the track. Asshole, Nyma thought.

“Hey,” Katie perked up, looking a bit afraid, “what’s up?”

“Okay, so, you’ve been just sitting here looking bored and annoyed,” was what, for some reason, Nyma decided to lead with, “you’ve been pissy for a while now with everyone since that thing with your parents started.”

“Those are some stellar observation skills you’ve got,” Katie lifted an eyebrow.

“Right,” Nyma looked at the tupperware, and back at Katie, “and the last thing we need right now is you sitting here yelling shit at us fucking up our energy because you  _ decided _ to come here when you were pissed. So I brought something to keep you from doing that.”

Nyma handed her the tupperware.

“What are these?” Katie asked, lifting the lid.

“What the hell do they look like?” Nyma folded her arms.

“They look like cookies,” Katie answered, “you made me cookies?”

“Whatever,” Nyma shrugged.

Katie stared at the cookies. Then at her. Then at the cookies again.

“Are you waiting for them to climb into your mouth?” Nyma asked.

“Should I be worried these are poisonous?” Katie shot back.

“Fuck’s sake,” Nyma huffed, taking a cookie and eating it, “see? They’re fine.”

“Okay,” Katie ate one for herself. She kind of couldn’t believe how good they were.

“Well?” Nyma asked impatiently.

“They’re fucking good,” Katie said, “you made these? For me? Voluntarily?”

“I will take them back if you don’t stop what you’re doing,” Nyma threatened.

“What am I doing?”

“Turning this into a thing,” Nyma explained.

“You brought me cookies,” Katie emphasized, “some of the best cookies I’ve had in my life.”

“You’re welcome,” Nyma said, “don’t expect things like this from me.”

“How bad does my life have to be before you bring me these things regularly?” Katie asked.

“Oh my god,” Nyma groaned, “just. Just shut up and eat the cookies.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Katie said.

“And feel better. We need you.”

“Aw.”

“So help me God, Katie,” Nyma said.

“Alright. It’s no longer a thing. Consider it not a thing. I won’t even bring the cookies up until I bring the tupperware back.”

“Good,” Nyma began walking away.

She was one of the strangest people Katie had ever met.

* * *

“Are you sure you want to cook?” El asked, “It’s our house. We could cook for you.”

“I insist,” Shay answered, “I’ve been dying to try my new recipe on someone.”

“Thanks again, babe,” Nyma kissed her girlfriend on the cheek. El smiled. She liked Shay. Shay was nice. And she and Nyma were really sweet together.

It was this that made El realize she hadn’t texted Katie in a few days. They saw each other at practice the day before, but they hadn’t really been one on one all that much. It took her ten full minutes to figure out what exactly to say to her. What she settled on was  _ how are you settling in?  _ Which was too generic and she knew that. But she already sent the message. 

“You’re gonna turn your eyes into ash holding your phone a fucking centimeter away from your face,” Nyma warned her, “what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m texting my girlfriend,” El answered.

A speech bubble appeared and disappeared.

“Give me that,” Nyma took her phone.

“Hey!” El reached for it, but Nyma held it above her head.

“I’m not gonna let you stare at your stupid phone all night,” Nyma said.

“Give that back!” El kicked Nyma in the shin.

“I’ll give it back if you promise not to stare at it waiting for Katie to text you back,” Nyma reasoned.

“You’re trying to bargain? This is  _ my  _ phone,” El pointed out.

“Shay’s over,” Nyma said, “you’ve barely talked to her the whole time she’s been here.”

“Hi, Shay,” El mumbled.

“Hi, El!” Shay beamed.

“You know that I’m not going to do that,” El said.

“Yes, I do,” Nyma placed her phone on the top shelf.

“Ugh. You’re like my mom,” El groaned, “you know I can reach up there, right?” 

“You won’t, though,” Nyma said.

“I won’t,” El agreed.

“I hope you guys like it,” Shay chimed in, “I’ve been experimenting with frankensteining recipes together based on what sounds the best.”

“I’m sure it’s gonna be great,” Nyma assured her.

El did her best to not think about the things Nyma told her the other night. But it sort of made her look at Nyma in a different light. Maybe a less mean spirited one.

Shay was a great cook. She was also, it turned out, just really nice to have around.

When Nyma gave El her phone back after Shay left, she had seventeen unread messages from Katie.

“Oh god, what if there was an emergency,” El hovered over the notification.

“I swear to god, Ellie,” Nyma rolled her eyes and walked away. 

El wasn’t sure what she was expecting the messages to be if not a horrific accident that required multiple ambulances, but it definitely wasn’t this.

**At 6:45 pm, Katie<3 said**

It’s nice.

Weird, but nice.

**At 6:47 pm, Katie<3 said**

I think it’s weird also that we call it Hunk’s apartment

Leandro and me.

I mean, he did live here first. 

But we live here now. I don’t know for how long I’m gonna be here, but you get the point.

**At 6:52 pm, Katie<3 said**

We should do something. 

Just you and me

This weekend.

I mean, like a date. 

We’ve been dating for a while now and we’ve been on two actual dates.

Plus I’ve been extra bad at the whole girlfriend thing lately.

Plus I miss you. 

A lot, actually.

**At 7:00 pm, Katie<3 said**

So turns out you can’t delete messages on other people’s phones even if you sent them.

Well, they’re embarrassing, but they’re still true.

Anyway. Frozen Yogurt on me?

**At 9:36 pm, you said**

Sounds nice.

I miss you too.

<3

* * *

“He’s in jail,” Nyma said, completely apropos of nothing on their way home from the match.

“What?” El asked.

“Rolo,” she explained.

“Oh,” El said.

“I didn’t mean to blurt that out,” Nyma added.

“People rarely mean to blurt things out. You don’t blurt out ‘I got a promotion’ or anything,” El pointed out.

“Since Katie gave our big tupperware back, I’m gonna make more,” Nyma continued.

“Okay,” El said.

“Don’t eat all of them.”

“Okay.”

“He didn’t kill anybody or anything like that,” Nyma sounded strained, “if you thought that.”

“I wouldn’t just assume your brother killed someone, Nyma,” El assured her.

“Well, good,” Nyma said.

“Do you want to talk about it?” El asked after some silence.

“No.”

“Okay.”

More silence.

“Vandalism. In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” El said. Realizing that wasn’t the point, she added, “what exactly did he vandalize?”

“A church,” Nyma answered hesitantly.

“Fuck,” was all El could manage to say.

“It was a shitty church,” Nyma added, “still is, I guess. Pastor is a bigot. Mostly attended by other bigots. They harassed Rolo and his friends a lot. One day, I guess they’d had enough. I begged him not to go, and I told him he was gonna get caught. But he didn’t listen to me.”

“He got caught,” El guessed.

“Yeah. Just him, though. His other friends got out of there in time. And he knew ratting them out would get him a lighter sentence. But he didn’t,” Nyma tightened her grip on the wheel, “I didn’t get it back then. I felt like I was being abandoned. I remember getting into a lot of screaming matches with him before he left. I told him not to come back.”

El didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.

“And you know what Jenna said to me? She said she couldn’t believe such a sweet kid could turn out like that. She blamed his blasphemous gay friends. When Shay broke up with me, I was almost grateful,”

Nyma wouldn’t even check the mirrors. Her eyes were fixed on the window completely.

“He got three years. Two now, I guess,” Nyma said.

“Nyma,” El said, “I am so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Nyma replied, “I just wish...you know, I could say I was sorry. For not being there for him.”

“Maybe you still can,” El suggested.

Nyma stayed silent for a long time.

“That’s what Shay says,” Nyma finally spoke.

She didn’t say anything after that. El didn’t press.

She caught Nyma looking through a box of Rolo’s stuff later that night in her room. The door was open, but she felt like she was barging in anyway. Nyma caught her staring.

“Sorry,” El backed away.

“It’s cool,” Nyma was holding a baseball. 

Nyma went quiet again, staring at the ball for a long time. El waited for her to speak again, completely frozen.

“You want to hear about the time Rolo got hit in the face by a baseball at a Red Sox game?”

It sounded pretty self explanatory.

“Sure,” El said, walking into the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's gonna be a lot more chapters focusing on the other girls on the team beside Red and Katie. And some chapters on the Garrison trio! I'm very excited about that. This is the tip of the iceberg (a lot of the other next chapters won't be as heavy as this one, lol) thank you guys for being patient!


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